Anniversary: for my dad

Yesterday marked the 17th anniversary of your death. It made me think again, as it does more and more each year, of how little I really knew about you. You were difficult to get to know–not because you weren’t approachable, but because you kept your deepest feelings to yourself by playing the entertainer. And you were fun to be around, always with a funny story or a bad joke. But we only had a handful of real conversations and most of them were about me and the rest of the family.

Of course, part of the blame for not knowing more about you falls on my shoulders. I was only 18 when you died, and still in the middle of the “my friends are the most important thing” years. And I’ll admit that I was a little angry at you too. After you and Mom split up, you moved away. I knew you had to go start a new life for yourself, but I resented it. You’d always been something of an absentee father, being the good provider by working 60-70 hour weeks. So, yes, my self-centeredness played a role, as did my being unable to figure out exactly how to talk to you.

But over the years, I learned about things that shaped your life. Some of it I found out long after your death, some I learned while you were alive. It’s odd, seeing a person’s life in bits and pieces like that, because the pieces don’t always fit together well. I want them to make sense and tell a whole story, but they don’t.

So here’s some of what I know about you: Your parents were overbearing, even well into your adult years. They worked hard to manipulate you, and your patience in dealing with that was astounding at times.

Your tour in Vietnam left you scarred emotionally, although you never told me anything other than the funny stories (lots of them about snakes). Mom told me recently that you killed a 12-year-old Viet Cong who would have shot you if you hadn’t gotten him first. I know that you must have been haunted by that.

You were a bigot, making no secret of your opinion on blacks, Asians (Vietnamese in particular), and homosexuals. And yet you had a diverse group of friends and would go out of your way to help anyone, no matter who they were.

You were an excellent carpenter and probably could have made a nice living at it–much better than the jobs you worked selling lumber all those years. But instead you did most of your work for the cost of materials. And you helped lots of people with home repair, again at no charge and sometimes at great inconvenience for you.

You were willing to do a lot for others. You learned how to help the woman next door with her insulin shots and colostomy bag when her husband, her usual caretaker, was in the hospital. You made handcrafted wooden toys for your unappreciative nephews (who promptly smacked me over the head with said toys and got them taken away). And yet you could also be very impatient with Mom and me when we wanted more time with you.

And some things I know about you make me especially sad. The years that you struggled with flashbacks and nightmares from your experiences in Vietnam, and were unable to talk about them with anyone. How you were just starting to find some happiness in your new life when you were killed by a drunk driver. You never made it home from work, and I know how you looked forward to seeing your fiancee and your dogs at the end of each day. Also, the fact that we didn’t get to grow into being part of each other’s lives. We existed kind of peripherally–with chatty letters and phone calls, but no real substance. I wish I had been able to get to know you, to hear something other than the funny stories. And I wish you’d been alive to see me graduate from college, get married, get a real job. Because I know you worried about me, and you would have gotten to see that I turned out OK.

Mostly I wish you’d done more things just for yourself. I remember you once told me that after the divorce became final, you almost booked a trip to Australia just because you’d always wanted to go. You changed your mind, feeling that you needed to be more responsible. I wish you’d gone.

So, 17 years and I still think about you a lot, especially on December 5. And every year I work hard to remember as much as I can, and add the new little bits of information I’ve collected over the year, trying to put just a little more of the puzzle together.

Rest well, and know you were loved.

Yeah.

My family hit 25 years last month.

Funny thing was…we didn’t talk about it. I called my mom, but we talked of other things. Both of us knowing what was on our minds.

I was 10. I never knew the man. Never even knew the concept of ‘knowing’ someone. And I still miss him today.

Suck much?

Yeah.

Warm thoughts and comraderie in your direction.

-Tcat