My Father Who Might Be In Heaven

Just before I sat down in front of my keyboard to type this blog, my thoughts seemed to coalesce into brief coherency long enough that I thought myself fully capable of doing so.  Then, as I sat here contemplating the subject I had chosen for this entry, I felt stymied.  It is not a matter I consider with ease, so why should I believe it would come out of me as anything but a breach birth after years of painful labor.  Its form encased in a mottled, repulsive infant that would make all in the delivery room recoil, especially me.  So with that let me begin and tell you about my father.

My father dressed up as Santa Claus.  Not just for myself and my sisters, but for all the “underprivileged” (our church’s word not mine) children who attended our church’s annual Christmas party.  Members of our congregation donated a toy which my father dutifully handed out with a merry "Ho, ho, ho!".  He was a pillar of our church and he made sure we attended as many services as were available.  

My father was Paul Bunyan, just as larger than life.  He would throughout fall and early winter become a weekend lumberjack.  He and my uncle would work to clear fallen trees off a friend’s property.  The wood being stacked in ricks to be taken home to help warm our house to keep heating costs down.  I was dragged along to spend time with him, in my coveralls, eventually helping to load the wood once older.  In nice weather, we might fish in the lake nearby prior to our woodcutting duties.  I thought the fishing was immensely boring but enjoyed the time spent on our own – just me and my dad.

My father was Richard the First.  Just like the king, my father had a lion heart.  Generous and protective of his family, he worked tirelessly at providing a home for his five kids – four daughters and I.  Often he worked overtime at Cummins to earn every extra dollar he could to keep us sheltered, fed and warm.  As is the case for those of my father’s generation, doing so was showing us he loved us.  It was how he demonstrated that he cared.

But just like a king, my father reigned over his kingdom.  He could be most kind and wonderful, but in dissatisfaction, would bellow his anger until the walls would shake.  While there were idyllic times in my childhood, these moments of uncontrolled outburst would make me pray to shrink – to become unnoticed under the table, camouflaged behind the recliner or hidden under the bed.  My sister has professed being beaten black and blue – at times, to spare the younger of us from such a fate.  I remember the terror from these bouts of paternal fury and I can shake uncontrollably to this day.  Whether a hand was ever taken to me, I do not recall.

My father was also unhappy in his marriage.  For several years he sought happiness in the arms of another woman.  The day my mother learned of his betrayal, in front of their pastor and his accusers, she came home, walked to her room and downed every pill she could find.  She survived her suicide attempt but she was left adrift in tears and antidepressants for too much of her life.  I knew nothing of these events, being before I was even ten years old, but have been told of them from enough sources to affirm the truth of the story.

The death of my sister when I was seven did not stop the affair any more than the suicide attempt.   I recall my father spending almost every evening for a number of years in his hideaway in our garage, talking on the phone for a long time to people advertising in our Trader newspaper, a print version of Craig’s list, but actually calling the same number, going out to fuel our car and being gone for over an hour.

I was born after my mother had a tubal ligation.  Oddly, it didn’t take.  Sometimes, I wonder if my birth had been accidental or an attention-getting ploy.  Perhaps at the time, fallopian tubes were harder to tie.

In light of the good and bad, the almost 30 years of indifference, love, caring, anger, and resentment added to the feeling that I had a father that was absent and a mother that at times may have wished she were, I contend now with my own stories and demons of that time.  I fear abandonment like an agoraphobe fears the open sky.  I believe being truly loved is the delusional behavior of a person who cannot see how worthless I am – how lazy and how incapable I am, since that was often my parents’ conclusion of any of my failures.  I see my father in the actions of my partner and displace my anger for him like a battleship displaces ocean to remain afloat.  Although, I know my father is not there and I am just replaying a scene in my head with which I am comforted no matter if it is painful.

At the end, I have only one conclusion of my father.  He may have been many things but at his heart he was merely human.  He was brimming with his own stories, peccadillos, whims, fears and thoughts.  Anger in him not inherited but somehow took on by me like I had.  In my heart, I too am only human.  I identify with his frailty, his desires to be happy, and his dreams for his future and his family and I am struck to tears.  A sadness that I loved him but hated him – that I mourned him but wished at times he was gone – that we both did the best we could and now that is all that I can do.

My conclusion for me is rather simple.  As Carrie Fisher said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.”  Forgiveness is not divine – a god does not need to motivate you.  One simply needs to forgive for oneself.  I forgive him but also need to forgive myself.  Thoughts are not sins; they’re just thoughts.  I do forgive myself – sometimes.  I’m getting better at it – it’s a good practice I suggest for anyone. 

As for my father who in his beliefs went to heaven a few years ago, I would say that although I do not believe in heaven, I would like to think he has, by his faith, created his own for himself.  I hope deeply that he made it there, for it is a fate he truly deserves.