Lent Day 35 - Dad

Tuesday, February 23, 1999

My dad turned 70 on Saturday, February 20, 1999. I was working that day, helping out with the youth group’s DiscipleNOW weekend. They were gallivanting all over the place. My job was to head up north of town to a church member’s huge open property and get things in order for the big afternoon activity. I think they were playing Capture the Flag (or a church version of that) and doing a bonfire that evening. I didn’t have to stick around for the duration; I just was the person getting things ready. I arrived early and decided to take advantage of the wait to call my dad on my cell phone. I wasn’t the earliest of adopters with technology, but I did get on board quickly on most things. I had a beeper in college - and dealt with all the questions of if I was a drug dealer. Then I got a cell phone pretty soon after college - and dealt with all the questions of if I was a drug dealer. I felt it was a justifiable expense. I lived hours away from my parents, who were not in the best of health even on a good day. I was rarely at my house because I worked with teenagers and college students. And I was a drug dealer. (Just kidding, although that would be a great plot twist.) I called my parents, and my mom answered. We exchanged our usual greetings, and I asked to speak to my dad to wish him happy birthday. I don’t remember what my mom said to him regarding who it was - I thought she said it was David, but she may have said it was his son. I don’t know. We had a nice, long-for-him conversation. Then he started talking about how I should look into the Navy. That he had read or seen something that talked about how the Navy had lots of good jobs. I told him I had a job, but he said maybe this would be a better job. That they specifically were looking for people in my field.

“Ministers?” I asked.“Why are they hiring ministers?”

“What? Did you go back to that?” he asked in confusion.

“What? No, I’ve been working at the same church since I graduated college,” I replied in more confusion.

“What? Who is this?” he questioned.

“Who is this? It’s David.” 

“Oh,” he laughed. “I thought it was Chris. Yeah, the Navy isn’t looking for ministers.” 

I tried to wrap my head around everything that had happened for the last few minutes. We finished up our conversation. I went about the rest of my day. Then we had church on Sunday. I made my usual trek from Tampa to Orlando for my seminary classes. Then Tuesday morning I was awakened with a phone call from my mom. “He’s gone,” she cried.

“Who’s gone?” I asked. I had a terrible feeling. I thought she might have meant the dog, but that was a girl. 

“Your dad,” she answered. “He’s dead.”

“What!?! Are you sure? What happened?”

She told me that she had gotten up earlier than him, as usual. Then she sent their dog Penny up to wake him up, as usual. But the dog didn’t come back downstairs. She just stood at the top of the stairs whimpering. My mom went up and found him. I hung up and found my roommate - the youth pastor - in the kitchen. He knew something was wrong. “I have to go home. My dad just died.” Then I lost it. I went home that day; I alternated between being numb and crying the whole drive from Tampa to West Palm Beach. I was there for three of the most chaotic days I could remember. My mom rushed to do the memorial service - another unfortunate example of her doing things without taking other people’s desires into consideration. Dad had requested to be buried in the Veteran’s Cemetery in Vermont - something that irked my mother because she took it to mean he didn’t want to be around her, even in death. (We could get into the hypocrisy of all of that based on HER last wishes, but we won’t.) Some of the staff members from my church came to the memorial, although none of the ones I was close with. I found out after I got back that they weren’t given the choice; the pastor had just announced he and a few others were going. Even in that moment, the Church managed to punch me in the stomach. Then I was back on my way to Tampa, so I could go with the college students to Jacksonville for their State Conference. I probably should have stayed in West Palm Beach through the weekend. I just wanted to get away and back to some level of normalcy. Although, I was pretty useless at the conference. 

[One bright spot was that I got to meet Heather’s aunt Pris. Heather and I didn’t start dating for another eight and a half months, but we were close. I had met her parents at other events. Her aunt and uncle were visiting from Pennsylvania, so to be able to see Heather they went with her parents to a mall in Jacksonville to meet up with Heather during our free afternoon. Heather had brought some of her friends to meet the crew, including me. I was really struggling at that point. So Heather’s mom looked at me and joked, “What’s wrong, David? You look like someone died.” I looked at her and blinked a few times. It felt like the entire food court silenced. “Yeah, my dad did Tuesday. I just got back yesterday.” Heather’s mom knew that; she was just being funny and had forgotten in the moment. I’ve done dumb stuff like that so many times. She apologized profusely, but it still is a great story to tell to embarrass her. Haha! Love you, Lois.]

I’ve thought so many times about that Saturday phone call with my dad over the years because it was the last time I talked to him. It was so weird, but it was kind of a perfect example of what it was like dealing with my dad. Chris and I sounded nothing alike. We looked dissimilar. In addition, I severely doubt Chris would have been calling to talk to my dad on his birthday. They didn’t get along … ever. Also Chris was very scatterbrained and tunnel visioned. He would forget MY birthday, calling me April 23 and saying he thinks I had a birthday recently. So there is no reason my dad should have thought it was Chris on the phone. The belief in our family was that dad didn’t like Chris because he was not “his” kid. Yes, he had adopted him, but he was from my mom’s previous marriage. They always butted head, or fists. The two of them had ten times more run-ins than any other combination of people in our family. But, then, my dad had actually been thinking of Chris when he read that story about the Navy. The conversation we had was pleasant and engaging with him thinking it was Chris. So there wasn’t just relentless hatred and animosity coming from my dad’s side ALL the time. At the same time, it was a little hurtful that my dad didn’t know it was me. I had been making an effort to ask to speak to him when I called, trying somewhat to repair our fractured relationship (I’ll get to that). So I felt a little slapped that he didn’t even recognize my voice. 
My dad was a confusing man. To this day, I don’t know what to think about him, and he has been gone for almost half of my life. Wow, that’s crazy. This Fall it will be exactly one half. He was a dichotomy. He would be ruthlessly cruel when we tried to tell him stories, but he was a master storyteller. He would be painfully lazy, doing nothing to keep the house going until he was forced to - and even then waiting another month or two. But he was an incredible worker at his job where he advanced far up into the Post Office’s hierarchy and national union officers. He would be stingy with things like … you know … food and bills. But then he would be generous with gifts and helping out people. He would be stony silent for days at the house, but he would chatter away to people he didn’t know at the grocery store. He loved to read, but hated education. He bragged on his kids all the time, but then berated and ridiculed them at home. He was a literal hero as a Marine, earning the Purple Heart and other accolades. But he wouldn’t confront people who wronged him or his family. He loved babies, but he hated kids. 

This example is perhaps the best metaphor for how hard it was to understand my dad. We had a massive mango tree in our back yard. And it was prolific. It would pump out hundreds of mangos. One of my chores for many years was to pick up the dog poop - and the fallen fruit. I hated mango season, which seemed to last for six months. I had to pick up so many rotten mangos. He cursed about the mango tree. He complained about how many mangos fell in the yard. He got angry at people wanting them for free - even thought they would just fall on the ground. But he actually loved mangos. At least once a year, my dad would have to go out and pick bags and bags of mangos, just to keep the yield under control. He would bring them to work and hand them out. We would leave piles of them on the curb for people to take. We would sell them. And we would save a few to eat. The thing is, my dad was allergic to mango sap. He would break out if it got on his skin. So when he went out to pick them, he had to wear long pants, long shirt, gloves, and a hat. Afterwards, my mom would put calamine lotion all over his neck - the only exposed area. He couldn’t touch the mangos, so the kids had to help out by grabbing them out of the basket on the long fruit picker he used. My mom would have to peel them and cut them up for him. He could eat them just fine, but he couldn’t touch them. My mom, who could touch them, couldn’t eat them. It was a fitting situation. Maybe you can see why it was an apt metaphor. The whole thing made no sense. It felt off kilter, out of sync, hard to fathom. 

I have fluctuated so many times in my life over how I should feel about him. There is an overwhelming avalanche of evidence to prove he was a bad person. 1) He was a cheater. He cheated on his first wife, who knows how many times. Shockingly (not), I never was given exact details about how and when my parents met and got involved. I am not naive enough to believe their relationship didn't overlap with his marriage. He cheated on my mother multiple times. We know of at least two affairs. One occurred when I was young, and it produced a child (who I have never met and don’t really want to). The second was when I was in middle school. That was the closest my mom ever got to leaving him. 2) He was verbally abusive. Every single one of his kids can testify to being on the receiving end of his vitriolic explosions. One time, we were bringing firewood into the house. (Yeah yeah. South Florida. We had no central AC or heat, so we lit fires for a while - until the chimney developed a hole in it and the house nearly caught fire. That never got fixed.) I dropped some of the wood in the living room on my toe, and I said something. I don’t remember what I said. I know I didn’t curse, but it sounded like I said “Oh crap.” He heard me and started screaming at me. I lied about what I said because I didn’t really remember what I said, and it needed to sound something like “crap.” So I said that I had said “oh crad,” which was just stupid. He screamed at me, and used the ruler, about cursing WHILE HE WAS CURSING AT ME. “Where the F did you learn that? You can’t use that F-ing language.” 3) He was physically abusive. See the previous example and the stories of him and Chris. Moving on. 4) He was emotionally abusive. He knew exactly what people were sensitive about and target that. He was especially bad with this with my mom. He tore her down and told her she was a lousy wife and a lousy mother. He tried to stop her from interacting with people - banning us from going to church, restricting her phone usage, eliminating any social interactions. He did the same thing to the kids. One comment he loved to use when I was trying to tell him about something was “pardon me, sir, but apparently you think you’re talking to someone who gives a shit.” 5) He was selfish. He would stretch out on the couch in the TV room in the evening. He was 6’5”, so he took up the whole thing. The other four of us would have to make do. Two would sit in chairs; the others had to sit on the floor. He put on what he wanted to watch, and then he fell asleep. But if we changed the channel when he was asleep, he would wake up and get angry. 6) He was racist - or at least racist adjacent. “I’m not a bigot; I hate everyone the same.” That was his defense. He told racist jokes, used racial slurs, went on racist rants. He bought into every racial stereotype, and then defend that by giving examples of things he “had seen” that proved it. 7) He was a liar. His stories grew more and more elaborate as years went on. He would tell the same story, but the details changed with each telling. It got to be we didn’t know one which was real. He may not have even known. 8) He was a thief. What’s the statute of limitations on taking packages from the post office that weren’t yours? I’m not sure. He didn’t do that. Never. Moving on. 9) He was a bully. I guess that this kind of combines the abuse numbers, but it seems different. When there was someone he didn’t like, he was relentless in going after that person. This was especially true of subordinates at work. And sports referees. When Chris played basketball in high school, we would go to the home games. Dad would scream and holler at the refs - just being completely out of control. I once told him to shut up. I thought I was going to die. I tried to get my mom’s help, but she told me that I had earned whatever happened. One time at work, a former disgruntled employee set fire to the paper in a wastebasket in the lobby. My dad actually put it out. But how mad do you have to make someone to have them come in and set fire in the lobby? This was the Post Office. Remember the term “going postal?” He pushed people to that. One former employee SHOT MY DAD’S CAR. Gunshots were not uncommon in our neighborhood. But one morning we came out and there were bullet holes in the front door of his car. This guy drove by and shot his car! Again, how angry do you have to make someone to have them do that? 

I could go on with more things, but I think that’s enough. See? Bad guy. EXCEPT, there are just as many things that are mitigating factors or showed he flat out was good. 1) He worked his ASS off … at work. When he was younger, he had multiple jobs all the time. He worked his way up from carrier to branch manager at the post office. He was a cop prior to that. And a Marine prior to that. He worked hard. 2) He made people out in public feel like they were valuable. He talked to people at Publix all the time. They all got to know him - the managers, service desk workers, meat department worker, produce department workers. He would do the same thing at the gas station and repair shop. He could be shockingly charming when he wanted. 3) He had PTSD. This wasn’t a “thing” for much of his life. But now, after finding out more about what he went through in Korea, it is clear that he had it. And it affected him throughout his life. There just wasn’t treatments for it, if he would have even acknowledged it. 4) I’m fairly certain he had Rheumatoid Arthritis. Again, never diagnosed. But neither was mine for years. I clearly remember him grimacing in pain with nothing having happened. I remember him lumbering around, especially in the morning. He was tired all the time. He complained about his chairs. It all sounded like how I have felt. I still have days like that, and I’m on tons of medication. His wasn’t treated at all. 5) He had undiagnosed sleep apnea until he was 67. Again, I know how that feels. I was an absolute zombie until I got my CPAP. He was a different person once he actually had some restful sleep. He hurt all the time. He was exhausted. That would make anyone crabby. 5) In his first marriage, he protected his kids. This was something I learned much later in life. We have always interacted to some extent with my dad’s children from his first marriage. But we actually have some semblance of a relationship with them now. And they have shared that he was very protective of them. This is something so foreign to me, because he was the one we needed protected from. It sounds like he was actually a fairly good dad for them - until he wasn’t. I could see flashes of this, like when he wouldn’t let my mom just “cancel” Christmas. But it seemed like he kind of felt he had done his bit, so now he wasn’t going to be involved any more. 6) He was pushed and provoked. This isn’t to say that he wasn’t an asshole all on his own doing. But he definitely was antagonized by my mother. She would go after him. If she felt something about him, she had no problem saying it … over and over again. Thinking back, I’m not surprised he would be in such a bad mood. If my spouse was constantly saying rotten things about me to me and to my kids, I would get angry (angrier) too. My mom never was sympathetic to him. She didn’t feel bad when he felt bad; she usually would make some snotty or passive-aggressive comment. She would use that whole “if you think YOU have it bad…” on him. She hurt worse. She worked harder. She was a better person. 7) He could be very thoughtful. There were times when I was surprised at how thoughtful my dad could be. A common stereotype is that men don’t have any idea what to get their wives for special occasions. My dad knew my mom’s favorite perfume, favorite candy, favorite restaurants. He never failed to get her those things on her birthday or their anniversary. He knew my brother wanted to be able to listen to his own music when he was a teenager, so Dad got him a pocket radio and then headphones with a radio in them. Yes, he pilfered them from undeliverable packages in the post office, but it’s the thought that counts. He bought flowers for one of my parents’ “adopted students” from the local college. He went to games with us. He took us to movies and concerts and school performances - even if he didn’t care for what was playing. When I was younger, I would sit behind his legs as he laid on the couch watching football. We watched a lot of sports together. He did Indian Guides with Chris when he was young. He ran the entire Postal Workers BBQ every year. He helped with my mom’s dad’s fish fry every year. He wasn’t consistent with this behavior, but when he did decide to be thoughtful, he was very good at it. 

This dichotomy makes things tough. I guess that is the never-ending story with history, too. George Washington is a national hero because he basically the Father of America. Then he is vilified because he owned slaves. Then people pointed out that he was more against slavery than most of his contemporaries. Then other people pointed out that if he was so anti-slavery he should have freed his slaves. Then other other people pointed out that his will stated his slaves should be freed when he and Martha passed away. Then other other other people pointed out that he also marginalized women and was perfectly fine stealing land from the indigenous people, so the slave thing was only one topic. Then Ron DeSantis made all those people leave the party they were at because they were harshing its vibe. What is it Harvey Dent says to Batman? “You either die the hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” I guess the opposite could be true as well. Villains sometimes start to have backstories that make them more sympathetic. Isn’t that the point of Cruella and Maleficent and some of the new Darth Vader or Boba Fest material? 

As I mentioned in my previous post about my mom, I grew up with my dad as the villain. I felt guilty for wanting to be with him. I felt that qualities I shared with him were tainted. I think one of the things I’m the most frustrated with my mom about is that I didn't get to know my dad. I’m not saying it is totally her fault. He never let me get to know him either. He could have talked with me or spent more time with me. I pulled away from my parents when I went to college. I hated going home and back into that environment. I got to experience the freedom of being in a place where people liked me and there wasn’t yelling. I hated seeing and hearing how he acted to my mom. That distance that grew - that was his fault. Even if there were other contributing or exacerbating factors, he still was the once acting the way he did. He didn’t need anyone to do anything. My mom may have poured gasoline on the fire at times, but he was the one who started the fire in the first place. I feel like the last few years, my overall perception of him has improved. But even in allowing that to happen, I feel guilty. I feel like I’m betraying the memory of my mother or my brother. Like I’m trying to explain why Hitler wasn’t really that bad of a guy. But there were a lot of things about my dad that I see in myself. I look a heck of a lot like him. I have a very similar sense of humor to him. I have the same desire to talk to people that he had. I love singing as I’m walking around like he used to do. I love to read. I love sports. Those aren’t bad things, and most of those things I did NOT get from my mother. I am really proud of his military service, especially as I’ve learned more about what he went through in Korea. I was always proud of it; now the scope of it is more real. I am more sympathetic to what his life was like, thinking about his physical and emotional situations. 

That doesn’t change the fact that he hurt his families horribly. We never felt safe. He was always a ticking time bomb. The house was so much more calm when he was on a trip. He treated my mother terribly. All of those things I mentioned earlier - they all left a lot of scars. If I was to give my dad the same treatment as I did my mom, I would have questions for him. Things that still hurt to this day. 

• Did you ever really love us?
• It always seemed like we were an inconvenience. Were you ever actually glad to have kids? 
• Did you push us away because you didn’t know how to love us? Or was it because you just didn’t want us around?
• Did your heart ever hurt for us? Like when we were injured or sad, did that connect with you? Did it make you sad when we were sad?
• Did you realize how scared we were? How unsafe we felt? Did that even matter?
• Did you honestly think Mom was making this seem worse than it was? 
• Did you not pick up on our body language when you were around? Or were you oblivious to how we all reacted to you, especially when you were on a tirade? 
• What was the deal with Chris? Why were you so mean to him?
• Was it really because he was not your biological child? You adopted him when he was like two. Couldn’t you see that you were the only father he knew? 
• You had some great experiences and memories with him when he was younger. Did something change that made you so mean as he got older? 
• Why didn’t you take better care of yourself? 
• I know this may not seem fair, but you made a lot of decisions that exacerbated your physical ailments. You had multiple massive heart attacks and at least one stroke. But you didn’t change your behaviors at all. 
• I understand how hard it is to make changes, and I have had my share of dumb choices leading to health trouble. I just hate that you missed all of the important things that happened in my life. You never met Heather, never met your grandkids, didn’t get to interact with me as a grown up. I think that you could have at least experienced some of that if you had been more careful. You were only 70. If you had lasted even five more years, you could have seen so many more important things. 
• Why did you cheat on your wives? 
• I don’t get this at all. And I know that if you had been faithful to your first wife that we wouldn’t be here. But how did this not bother you? How did you get into this situation so many times? Were you just that unhappy? Or was it boredom? Or ego? 
• How were you able to walk away from your first family? When I think about your kids from that first marriage, how they must have felt … I feel sick. My heart breaks for them. What made you make that choice?
• Were you willing to do the same thing to us if it had come to that? 

My overall anger with my dad is a lot different than with my mom. That comes from him being gone for almost 25 years; I’ve had lots of time to work through things. And I already had a pretty negative view of him, so I haven’t uncovered a lot of stuff to make that worse. Most of the new information I’ve gotten since he died has helped to humanize him and paint him in a better light. The anger I have mostly simmers far beneath the surface. I’ve made peace with a lot of things, but clearly not everything. I know that my mind isn’t settled when it comes to him - or my mom or brother - because of my dreams. I don’t try to figure out what my dreams mean, but I dream about my dad a LOT. The dreams always are frantic and hectic and chaotic. We are escaping from something or rescuing someone. He’s there, my mom is often there, my brother is there too. They are never peaceful or pleasant dreams. It’s like my subconscious knows that I am still in turmoil regarding those people. I don’t think I’ll ever get everything settled when it comes to my dad. I hope that I can learn to embrace the positive things about him and acknowledge the negative things. I hope I can come to peace with the fact that he was a complicated man.