Most of my life I’ve had a strained relationship with my Dad. When we were young, he left most of the child rearing to Mom, and although I strived mightily to win his attention (even running away from home once or twice), I always seemed to fall short. My Dad was the breadwinner, an engineer and the first one in his family to go to college. He was an American success story, the kind of guy who could build houses, manage factories, sail all kinds of boats and repair anything. Being a father just wasn’t his greatest priority.
The first time I ran away, I was perhaps five or six years old. I remember going into his den, where he always retreated after dinner — to play with his ham radio, connect with buddies or study for a test (he was always taking classes of some sort or the other). I announced I was running away and showed him my small suitcase packed with clothes. I wanted him to take note of my anger, but all he did was laugh and that made me run right out of the door. I didn’t get very far; I hid under a bush at the side of our house, until my Mom’s concerned voice coaxed me out. After that, I pretty much gave up on trying to win my Dad’s attention and turned to Mom for all my childish needs and wants. As I grew older, I rebelled against his indifference and even sassed him on occasion. In my memoir, Brassy Broad: How one journalist helped pave the way to #MeToo, I write about one instance where I talked back to him after he put my mother down, and how he exploded at my presumptuousness. It wasn’t the first time I pushed my Dad’s buttons and it wouldn’t be the last.
The strained relationship I had with my father lasted through much of my adulthood. But then something changed after my Mom died. My father, who was then 90 and living in a senior living facility only 10 minutes from my house, grew increasingly reliant on my help. I often took him to his doctors’ appointments and drove him over to our house every Sunday for dinner. (My husband drove him back while I did the dishes). I was the one who met him in the emergency room when he had an intestinal blockage and visited him in the hospital every day as he recovered from the latest insult to his health. I arranged hospice care when he got out of hospital so he wouldn’t have to go to a nursing home, and when Dad, to everyone’s surprise, recovered, I was the one who happily discharged hospice from his life.
Six months after Mom died, Dad introduced me to the new lady in his life, Jody, a very sweet woman 10 years his junior who lived in the same senior complex and was one of the few progressives in a place teeming with conservatives. Jody, a retired clinical psychologist, seemed to bring out the best in my Dad. It was then I discovered that my Dad, whom I had always thought a taciturn man, had a sly sense of humor. He joked that he only went out with smart women — first my Mom (to whom he had been married for 66 years) and now Jody. He even told me on occasion that he loved me and appreciated what I was doing for him.
When my Dad broke his hip in January 2019, I was the one who met his ambulance at the emergency room and stayed with him until he was admitted. He insisted on going through a hip replacement, made it through surgery despite some hiccups with his heart, and he seemed to be on the road to recovery after a month in rehab, where the physical therapists worked hard to get him to walk. But after Dad returned home, he seemed to lose his will to thrive. He came up with excuses for not doing physical therapy and he gradually grew weaker and died that April, at the age of 95. Now, more than three years later, I remain grateful for the time we had together at the end of his life, when I got to see a different side of my Dad, a softer, funnier, more loving side. Those memories sustain me on Father’s Day and every day of the year.
This blog is also posted on medium.com.
