For many people, the person that holds the title "father" is a very loving and supportive soul. That was not the case for me. I had no stepfather or substitute dad, I had only one biological father. My father was named after the Jewish prophet, Saadiah Goen. My grandfather, Benjamin, was a great student of literature and Jewish history and he felt his youngest son best fit the passion of this leader. Intensity was not something my father lacked. He was a man who was a mixture of intellect, rigidity, kindness, stubbornness, pride, sadness and anger.
He had great respect for his parents, both first generation immigrants. To him, their sacrifices and wisdom were to be honored. Although my father, Sid, was not in any way a religious man, he did identify his ethnicity as Jewish. He was not quite the atheists my grandparents were, but he definitely questioned the spirituality of life. Ironic that my grandparents and my father were quite intuitive.
My father was 48 years old when I was born. My mother was his only wife who he married two years prior. He was a good provider and treated my mother's children from a previous marriage in a respectful manner. My father was a kind man. He often helped to care for the pets of friends and neighbors. Frequently, he would offer a ride to a stranger or be particularly helpful to the family of friends.
There was however another side to this man. After the years of neighborhood baseball and pick up football games, jobs in canning factories, and being a hired hand at local farms, he took to being in the Navy for a year and then two decades in the Merchant Marines. His service time encompassed World War II and his love of travel and anthropology took him to many countries around the world. There were many things my father never talked about. He rarely spoke of fellow servicemen, battles, or casualties. His sentiment about the war was remarkable in some ways. Despite my aunt, his older sister, being very negative towards Germany after the war my father actually felt a great deal of compassion. He believed strongly that Germany had suffered a great deal during and after the war and that much of the cruelty that occurred was strongly guided by Russian rather than German forces.
He was a man who had very, very rigid beliefs about right and wrong. Although he had compassion for those who were struggling many times, there were several occasions where his sentiment was nothing short of ruthless and he displayed the violence to show it. For many years he was a very athletic man and even wrestled professionally before the antics of today's wrestlers. He believed strongly in defending what he believed was important and nothing, human or animal, could easily stop his force once initiated.
His temper, which he often described as causing him to see red, was something we all understood. There were certain things that were never said or done around him. It was just the way it was. He was adamant about being strong and weakness in most forms was completely and utterly unacceptable. I remember he was once in the hospital and had received a spinal block. As he was laying flat upon his bed, he demanded that my mother and I leave so we should not see him in a weakened state. Although he had some kindness towards those with certain illnesses, he was ruthlessly unforgiving for those who would choose to be weak. Strength was a most valuable virtue in his eyes.
I never heard the words: "I love you" or "I'm proud of you" ever leave my father's mouth though I would think on some level both were true. He made certain sacrifices for others: not playing football in high school so he wouldn't upset his mother, graduating high school so he would not disappoint his parents, leaving the house so my mother could meet with people he didn't like, and taking his daughter to dog shows so she could showcase her prized pup in a community quite a ways from home.
In retrospect, I can see some signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in my father. He didn't like crowds, going out, most loud noises, or close interaction. Because he was away at sea early in my life, I never bonded with him enough to call him by anything other than his first name and even that wasn't until much later in my life. I never had a daddy and quite honestly I don't really think I had a dad either. I had a man, a stranger in many ways, who was my male biological parent.
Since living in the desert I have discovered a cactus called a cholla. Affectionately it's called a teddy bear cactus which I believe is a cruel joke. The barbs for this cactus can get in the skin and must be removed with pliers, a less than pleasant activity. These plants make the briars from back East look positively harmless. My father reminds me of a cholla in some ways. He could cause a violent impression and yet at times appear quite harmless.
I don't hate the memory of my father or even the man himself. I feel sad, jipped you might say. In the 7 years since his death at the age of 91, I still wonder about who this man really was. What thoughts and feelings did he have that none of us ever knew? Who was he really? I would like to believe that I have taken on the best of what this man offered me. He did teach me things and his love of childhood stories, mysteries, and diversity have left a huge impression upon me. The effects of having an emotionally distant, perhaps some would say broken, man as a mentor is something from which I am still recovering. Although the adult in me knows, he truly did do the best he could, the child in me wonders why I was not enough for him to be warm, loving, and gentle.
Recovery and spirituality have overlapped a lot for me. Recognizing that the behavior of others has little to nothing to do with me has been a real challenge for me to accept. Realizing that we all come from backgrounds that are less than what we wished they were is very real for most of us. My father, Sid, was in some ways a man among men. In other ways, he was a very fearful little boy afraid to give and receive love at the most basic of levels.
No comments:
Post a Comment