Saturday, June 18, 2011

Father's Day: To sleep, perchance to stay asleep

Father's Day: To sleep, perchance to stay asleep


You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's.
(Robert Frost)

I slept through most of Father's Day this year ... and clued in to why at about 8:00 p.m.

One week ago -- long story short -- my father, through a beloved elder who has been my "guardian angel" since I was five, made it known that he'd be willing to talk or visit with me if I "get a job or go back to school."

This beloved elder is also a staunch friend to my father -- perhaps his only friend. They're both over 80, both parents, and they've known one another for about 46 years.

Eight years ago, when my husband, catalon, came into my life, my father booted me out of his. Long story short: catalon -- in my father's view -- was a gold-digger. He was after me for my money and assets. Catalon was working-class; not good enough; he wasn't a money-shark. He wasn't predatory enough in the working world, I suppose ... and my father believed he was predating on me. The joke's on Dad; catalon and I were both 'that far' from broke when we met. We still belly-laugh on occasion over how null and void my father's fantasy was.

Now, thanks to my beloved elder, my father will grudgingly admit that after these eight years -- and relentless evidence that my man is my mate -- catalon is a decent enough man to have stood by me through some harrowing times, including the long illness that I have experienced. My father -- and I sorrow for him here -- refuses to move beyond this reluctant admission. It seems that the wealth of a man's soul is irrelevant to him; he does not -- cannot? -- see the integrity of my husband's chosen character. He cannot see that my husband has all the qualities of a gentleman ... and of a sterling father. Most of all: catalon's character is centered in love.

When my beloved elder (who considers catalon her son) told me a week ago of what my father had told her -- "I'll see her when she gets a job or goes back to school" -- I thanked her, as I have countless times, for her (latest) attempt to wake my father up. He's been horrifically ill for many years, widowed for nearly nine, and is in relentless pain of every kind. One would hope that his own experience might inspire empathy for others' ... but no. His only daughter, who has been ill for over two years and whose primary work right now is to make herself as well as possible within this context of chronicity, needs to get off her lazy ass and get a life.

I got off the phone and pitched over; wailed for as long as it took.

So on Father's Day this year, I mourn. I close a door that I've kept ajar for my dad for the last eight years. I've given up -- and sometimes that is the wisest thing to do.

I actually sent him a Father's Day card -- a week early! I'd thought the big day was June 13th, and I called all the cherished fathers I know ... each of whom rang out with joy at my call, and mirth at my brain fart. I didn't call my first father. He never picks up for me.

I thought I was over him.

I broke last Sunday, on my goofed-up Father's Day, when my beloved elder delivered Dad's proclamation. There are many factors involved in why he would essentially say She has to get a life before I'll see her, and I forgive them all. I can't help myself; he's my dad. At the same time, the contempt in his statement struck home -- it's far too close to how I still tend to debase my own self and experience.

There were rare but pervasive moments of sweetness, long ago, with my dad ... and he provided all that a family could need and want from a man of his culture and generation. His laugh was huge, explosive; he could be garrulous and so generous when he was in a flush time. He adored Frank Sinatra -- "My Way" was his theme song, and everybody knew it. He gave me a horse on my tenth birthday, and a two-month trip out west when I was 26. He loved to give, and many people took full, fuller, fullest advantage of this; they came to see and use him as a bank.