99. Things I Learned from My Father – Stacy London
I allowed that feeling to flow through me and lead me to that place of love and peace where the truest memories of my father live.
As I was settling into bed last night, I was struck by a memory of my father.
It was early 2018, and he was in a taxi, in traffic, late for an appointment. My dad was obsessed with being on time—he considered it an important sign of respect—so he got out to run the last few blocks. Except try as he might, he couldn’t move with his usual speed. He couldn’t fly down the block. He’d been diagnosed with heart disease several years earlier, and though he had tried to defy it by working harder at the gym, by walking to work in twenty-one minutes rather than his usual twenty-four, he could only outrun it for so long.
He was on the phone with my sister at the time, relaying his anxiety at being late, his frustration at his body’s inability to abide by his wishes. As I lay there in bed recalling this, thinking of my strong, opinionated, 6’5”, college basketball champ dad feeling so out of control, tears began streaming down my face.
It will be two years in November since my father died, and I have been back and forth through the stages of grief and have slowly reached acceptance. But everything, every emotion has been heightened by quarantine, and the memory of that moment, feeling his pain and frustration at the body that betrayed him, just knocked the breath out of me.
With so much time on our hands, with so much fear and anger in the world today, it’s been so easy to spiral: into the negative voices that question our self-worth, our sense of meaning, our desire to create purpose and be a force for change. It’s easy to spiral into a sense of helplessness, the kind I imagine my father felt. It’s easy for me to fall into the despair of missing him.
In the past, when I experienced that shape-shifter called grief, it would take me days to recover. But last night, I let the pain come. I allowed that feeling to flow through me and lead me to that place of love and peace where the truest memories of my father live. What I’ve learned from my dad is to get through pain by moving through it, to let go of the illusion of control by recognizing it, and to find meaning by creating it.
– Stacy London
Prompt:
How do you get past pain? How do you let go of the illusion of control? How do you find meaning?
Anne Shepstone
Location: Canada
About: I have been writing these journal entries in emails to my daughter to read when she's older. This one was thoughts about my mom and grandparents who have passed and how l feel as they never got to meet my daughter and dealing with grief.
Age: 42
Hi sweetheart
With the virus still going strong and your father and l trying to go out as little as possible l’ve been feeling a bit trapped in our house. Plus there has been a heat wave on that hasn’t helped for getting out for some fresh air. So as you nap peacefully on my lap unaware of all the stress in the world l can’t help but focus on the pictures of my mom and grandparents on the fridge. They make me happy and sad at the same time. The picture of my mom laughing while she dances down Main Street at the magic kingdom or her picture with the dolphin from Epcot she was so proud of. She told me how she was talking to the one nurse late one night about all her adventures and how she was happy to have had such a full life. Thinking about this moment though brings on the tears, l miss her so much and l so wish she could have met you. Same with the picture of my grandparents that picture was taken on an outing at my grandmothers nursing home. Grandma in her big yellow sun hat and grandpa smiling away fills my heart with such joy. Grandma had alzheimer before l was born and went through the really bad part of it in my early teens but after that she was just happy especially if there was music playing and if there wasn’t any she’d make her own. They taught me so much about how even if the words weren’t there you could still show someone how much you love them. My grandfather grew up in a time when you weren’t supposed to be open with your feelings, l remember once when mom and l we’re leaving there house and he said his usual goodbye of “l’ll see you in the movies” and l always responded with “l love you to” and gave him a big hug. My mom asked me why l always responded with l love you too when he hadn’t said he loved me. I told her but he did, that’s his way of saying it. She got really emotional and said he’s been saying that to her all her life but she never understood it till l explained it, then she went back in the house and gave him a really big hug. She told me after she had always wished he had told her he loved her and she wished she had understood sooner. Sometimes when your sleeping and just waking up in the morning we see you waving to the ceiling or wall, sometimes you even say bye in your half awake, half asleep state and l wonder if one or all of them have come to visit with you. Grief is a weird beast, it can make you happy about the memories and question every decision you had made at the same time. I wish they were here so l could talk to them during these long days, ask them about what l was like as a kid, or just watch you talk to them over video. I have a million and one questions and now l understand better the grief my mom felt after my grandparents passing. I watch old home movies which helps a little but also makes me wish l had taken more. I long for my godmother to as l asked her questions about mom and her growing up but never asked questions about me as a kid, and l wish she was still with us too so l could talk too. Please know how much l love you and l treasure all the moments we have together even the ones where your so frustrated you bite me, but as your only one l don’t take it personally. <3
XO
Mom
Anonymous
Happy Hours
I don’t know what my father was thinking when he decided to show me how to make a martini. I was barely 8 years old.
I was always following Mom around, trying to help out with chores. That was one way to get some positive attention.
I must have been in the den with her when Dad arrived from work, right on schedule as usual, at 5:30 sharp. Mom and I had been setting up the ice bucket, ice, pitcher, and glasses for their Happy Hour. That was their time to talk alone, without the four little rascals interrupting.
Dad gave Mom a quick buss on the lips, looked down and was surprised to see me underfoot. So he took the opportunity to ask me to “be a good girl” and please bring him his comfy loafers from across the room. I was thrilled to have an assignment. Dad hardly ever talked to me. Sometimes I wondered if he even knew I was there.
When he saw how happy I was to wait on him, he said, spontaneously, “Thanks, honey. Now, how would you like to learn how to make a Martini?”
“Charlie!” Mom chided. “She’s not old enough for that.”
I said, “What’s a mar---teeeen---eee?” as I watched him pull off his fancy shoes and slip on the loafers.
My parents’ den felt like sacred space to me. I was honored to be allowed in for quality time with just the two of them. A few years back they had converted our attached garage into a comfortable great room, a place for Gertrude and Charlie to have quiet adult time while the kids were in the living room watching a black-and-white movie on The Early Show.
Their haven had beautiful cherry paneling, oak floors, and a brick fireplace with a built-in hooded grill. That’s where Dad cooked London Broil for all of us to dine together in front of a roaring fire, one or two Saturday nights a month.
Mr. Angelo Delaventura, a skilled carpenter, had designed and constructed the space. He made customized bookshelves (filled with my dad’s law tomes), and a liquor cabinet, stocked with gin, whiskey, tonic, sodas, and Cokes for the kids. There was even a hi-fi so Mom and Dad could listen to their music.
Dad had asked Mr. Delaventura to take the old cherry conference table from his law office and turn it into a six-foot trestle table with two benches. He made a built-in window seat in one corner, where he positioned the table and one of the benches, to form a cozy booth. (Sometimes I did my homework there.) The second bench became a coffee table in front of a burgundy leather sofa, where Mom would sit during Happy Hour, across from Dad in his avocado leather lounger.
“Let’s see,” Dad said, as he rose and walked over to the liquor cabinet. “A Martini is made with two different kinds of alcohol: gin and vermouth.” I crowded him as he pulled two mysterious containers out of the cabinet: a green glass bottle of Martini & Rossi Vermouth and a clear bottle of Gilbey’s Gin.
“Then we have to use this little shot glass and this pitcher to mix my Martini. We take three full shot glasses of gin and pour them, one at a time, into this pitcher of ice.”
He poured the first shot. Then he filled the second shot glass with gin and handed it to me. “See if you can pour that into the pitcher,” he said.
I managed. This was fun. “How many shots do we have to do now?” He asked. I thought back, pondered the two we already poured.
“I think we just have one more,” I said. He filled it for me and I poured it into the pitcher again.
“This looks like water,” I said. He laughed.
“Now we have to add the Vermouth,” Dad said, filling the shot glass a little less than full. Again I poured it into the pitcher, amazed that I was actually concocting a cocktail for my dad.
“Now what?” I asked.
“This is the important part,’ Dad said, exaggerating the final step and drawing out its execution.
“We have to stir the ingredients, just right, clockwise.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
He showed me, using a glass stirrer with his right hand turning in the same direction that the clock hand goes when it progresses around the circle each hour.
“Why clock--wise?” I wondered, trying out another new word.
“To get the gin and vermouth mixed just right. We live in the northern hemisphere,” dad was now ad-libbing as he tended to do when he had an audience reeled in. “And in the north, we have to stir everything clockwise, to sync with the revolution of the earth.”
That made absolutely no sense to me, but this was not the time to challenge the Old Man. “If you say so, Dad,” I said, seeing the twinkle in his eye.
Next, dad showed me how to carefully pour his special cocktail into his special glass, so I wouldn’t spill a drop. He started. I finished. Success!
“Take a sip,” he said. “Charlie!” Mom chided again, laughing this time.
“Don’t worry, she won’t like it a bit,” Dad said. “Try it, sweetie.”
I took a teensy sip. It sure didn’t taste like water. It burned all the way down. I tried to spit it out, making a big scene. That’s not funny, I thought.
“That’s OK, “ Dad said. I didn’t like Martinis until I was a grown up.”
“Don’t worry, dad. I won’t be sipping any Martinis until I’m an old lady,” I said, laughing.
Next, we realized we hadn’t made Mom’s drink yet. “Sorry,” Dad said. “I got carried away.”
Mom was easy. One shot of Seagram’s Seven, a couple of ice cubes, and a “splash” of water.
Dad and I got her done. They toasted their new bartender and I went off to finish watching the Early Show. I would return to mix drinks for many more Happy Hours.
Little did we know that in another seven years, when the little rascals became teens, they realized those clear liquid bottles would come in handy for sourcing our weekly beach parties. While our parents were at a cocktail party down the street, their teens poured some of Dad’s gin into half-empty Coke bottles, stirred “clockwise” and headed to our bonfire on the beach. We only took a little at a time and always refilled the gin bottles with tap water.
Our friends also raided their parents liquor cabinets on those nights, including the parents who were hosting the adult cocktail party my parents attended.
One particular Saturday, after two martinis, my Dad knew something was wrong, because he didn’t feel any buzz. Dave, the host, was also remarkably sober.
Dave and Dad checked the liquor stash and sniffed the bottles of gin and vodka. Oh ho! They were teens once themselves, and quickly realized their kids had raided their parents’ liquor cabinets and replaced what they took with water from the tap. After several weeks, the adults were drinking mostly H2O.
“Looks like they learned from the pros,” laughed Dad and Dave.
Dad, Mom and the other parents had little talks with their carousing teens. They put us all on notice that they wouldn’t be fooled again. They were right. We were much more careful the next time.
Soon I went away to college, where wine and pot were more appealing than hard liquor. The time machine sped up. I would only go home two or three times a year for holidays and a quick summer visit.
Suddenly, years before I anticipated it, there would be no more quality time with my parents. Mom died from a sudden cerebral aneurysm when I was 24 (she was only 63). Dad was still grieving six years later when he ignored a festering shoulder boil and allowed it to advance to stage four malignant melanoma before he even consulted a doctor. I was 30. There would be no parents to give me away at my wedding three years later.
Now that I’m an old lady, I realize I never did acquire a taste for Martinis. But I inherited the cherry table and benches that Angelo Delaventura made with love for some of our family’s happiest hours. And I always stir clockwise.
Devorah Titunik
Location: Arlington, TX
About: Remembering my father and dealing with his loss
Age: 61
My relationship with my father was difficult for most of my life. I was always on the outside, not welcomed into his inner circle the way my sisters were. It was a few years before his death that I figured out why. When I was visiting him with my sister she mentioned an illness I had been going through. It turned out to be something I inherited from him. That day everything changed.
My parents both had affairs. My mother used to tell us of how badly my father treated her when she was pregnant with my younger sister because he didn't think it was his child. But then she came out looking just like him. My mother had a way of remembering things in a way that made her look good and made her the victor. It occurred to me that maybe I was the child he thought wasn't his, and I came out looking just like my mother.
In those last years, I was able to forgive and begin to heal. It was never mentioned, other than a letter he wrote me saying that if for any reason I thought I hadn't been loved or was loved less, it wasn't true. Even though I never said anything about feeling unloved by him.
When he was in the hospital near the end, I called him each day. On the last evening, I felt a strong need to call him one more time, he was tired and our conversation was short, I just told him I felt the need to tell him I loved him. Just as we were hanging up, he spoke the last words I would hear from him, they were "forgive me". I got a call at 6AM the next morning letting me know he had passed.
The following is a poem I wrote about a year after he died.
For My Father
It wasn’t a long walk
From the car to the spot
We’d chosen, by the river
But as it was to be
Our last together,
It was the longest
Walk of my life.
Lifting the box,
I followed my sisters.
We didn’t speak,
Each was lost in
Her own thoughts
And memories.
Carrying the box felt
Like carrying a baby,
As if I were carrying
My own child.
Full Circle.
So much l longed
To say to you,
Forever now
Left unsaid.
Your ashes caught
The morning light
As we scattered them
Over the river
Sparkling as they
Descended, barely
Disturbing the
The mist that hung
On its surface.
With surprising speed,
We were done.
All I had left of you
Was the fine dust
That clung to
My fingers.
I held them
Against my
Frozen cheeks.
So many feelings
Love, hurt,
Admiration, anger
Running down
My face, through
My fingers, mingling
With your dust,
Seeping into my pours.
The whole focus
Of my life had been
A fruitless attempt
At gaining your approval.
What do you do when life
Loses its focus?
I was a woman of straw
I realize now, searching
For what was already mine.
Spending years up and down
The yellow brick road
Searching for you.
I found you,
When I looked
Into a mirror
And finally
Saw myself.
Patrick McDonnell
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
About: How a horrible situation resolved itself into the best time of my life.
Age: 68
Crying from worst to best.
The day my wife gave birth to our son was a traumatic one for me, and for her as well. Her water broke and we went to the hospital. Her Doctor waited to see if she had contractions, and she didn't, so they gave her a ton of oxytocin to provoke her. (Oxytocin is the hormone of love and our son certainly has shown his loving side to one and all during his life; he even keeps up friendships with his ex-girl friends on Facebook.) As the hours passed and nothing happened it was evident that she would have to have a c-section. This upset me no end, as we had counted on a natural birth and I knew the risks of any operation; a 1% chance of death. What my wife didn't know was that one of the gynaecologists I worked with had lost his wife to anaphylactic shock to the anethesia during birth. So that was in the back of my mind. I insisted on going into the OR because I was a medical illustrator and knew what was about to happen.
She was prepped and the surgeon, an ace, did his incision and brought out our son, big and long, too long to give birth via the natural canal. Our son had the best note on the scale they judge babies. But. But the monitors went crazy for my wife, showing that her blood pressure had gone down to zero. The surgeon looked at me and then ordered me out of the room.
In the OR dressing room I waited for an eternity to know if she was alive or dead. I cried. I cursed. I died the death of a hundred cuts, in that OR dressing room all alone. I had seen death before in operating rooms. I knew what they might be doing; a code blue, the crash cart, the opening of her chest cavity, the massage of the heart, the injection of epinephrine into the heat as a last resort. All gruesome stuff, happening to the person I loved more than my own life. And I cried. and I prayed. I got down on my knees and I begged for Him to spare her. Even now, I cry at the memory.
But she was alright, just a syncope. When they threw me out, she got angry and her blood pressure went back up again. (we laughed about this later.)
After an eternity - it seemed to me - the nurses came out and told me I could hold my son. They called me by my wife's name, because in Quebec, women keep their maiden names as their official name. A minor detail, but a funny one.
I took him into my arms, my son, who looked like a wrinkled monkey. I had just seen him before in the OR full of blood and vernix caseosa, before they washed him off. Not a pretty site, but no deformity of the head due to vaginal delivery. Why do they let men into the OR for the birth of their kids? Better to keep this secret, this most intimate moment of life. And it can go all wrong; would you want to see you wife bleed to death when they take the after birth out? And to take videos...
In my arms I took him to see his mother, who was now resting in a hospital bed. I could hardly hold him he was so long. It was a full moon, and a lot of babies had been born that day. We looked at what we had made, and we cried, but now it was tears of joy and relief. She took our son and put him to her breast and it was a moment of bliss. I cried inside, again, but with joy and thankfulness for this blessing. My son. My wife. My self. My family. All one and healthy and alive. What a day it had been, and what emotions I had gone through from the worst to the best.
Sherri Battaglia
Location: Pennsylvania
About: Journaling through healing from cancer
Age: 40
My illusion of control was shattered with one phone call. And now that I know how fragile it all is, there is no word smithing, slight of hand, or level of security that could ever weave that tapestry back together again.
I remember a few months into my cancer diagnosis, wondering why somedays felt like I was walking up Mt. Everest through clouds of mashed potatoes. Why my soul felt so down trodden, anger and tears rising and falling like a seasaw that wouldn't let me get off. Why I couldn't find enough strength of mind, redirection and gratitude to change it?
Then the next day, I would somehow be ok. Renewed energy to kick cancer in the @$$, and a quieted spirit, thankful for the love and care surrounding me. What did I do differently on these days? It was nothing obvious, nothing perceivable, or tangible.
I think it's simply this. To get past pain you must walk through it. There is no detour, no escalator, no escape. You will be singed by fire, charred, scarred, but you will live. You will realize a strength you never thought you could possess. The grief and heaviness, the threat of death, it didn't break you. You stood back up.
These days the cancer is behind me, though the treatment remains. And maybe the knowledge that I won has etched itself into my unconscious and turned the tides of my conscious thoughts.
I won't be the same person I was before. So care free, innocent, naive. And that's ok. There's a sense of something akin to pride that I stared death in the face. I flinched but held its gaze. And I'm still here.
There's a hope that there must be a reason why. Something I have yet to accomplish. Someone I have yet to meet, yet to help, yet to encourage. And that hope is a nice counter balance when the fear of recurrence tries to rear it's ugly head.
Hope grows like a flower in the sidewalk crack. Despite it all, hope rises like a Phoenix. And hope gives us meaning, because we can imagine all the possibilities, we know now that we cannot be limited by the chains that tried to bind us. Hope is the knowledge that we can carry on even when the illusion has been shattered.