Father's Day
Mon., June 18, 09:39 AM
I didn't know I was going to write about Father's Day. Husband said to me, as usual, “I know what I want for Father's Day” and, also as usual, I replied, “you're not my father.” It is nearly thirty years since my dad died, and my siblings and I still miss him deeply.
I am not saying Husband wasn't a good father. To the best of his ability — and without having had a role model — he was a wonderful father, and our children love him, remembering what he used to be. Nevertheless, he is not my dad.
As I read various posts yesterday about fathers, I realized that my memories arise from a different time frame. Only as an adult could I realize how fortunate I was to have my dad at home during World War II. Dad was a little old to be drafted, although he probably would have been accepted, had he volunteered. However, he was also in a different bracket (as I understand it) because he was supporting not only his own family but his widowed mother. (Gramma's oldest son, incidentally, had been an officer injured in World War I; I think she had done her part!) So Dad was not in the service, just in the Civil Defense, on top of working both is regular day job and swing shift at a defense-related machine shop.
Six days a week, Dad was gone by the time I got up in the morning and didn't return until long after I had gone to bed. (I do remember waiting up for him once, 'cause I was mad at my mother about something, and nearly falling off my seat from sleepiness before he got home. I might have been three?) On Sundays he was home, and some of my best memories of him come from those Sundays. I walked to the store with him to get the Sunday papers. If he had to stop off at his workplace, he took me with him. We listened to the radio together, and when Mayor LaGuardia wasn't reading the funny papers, Dad read them to me. We had a large radio — it stood on the floor — in the living room, and I remember the sensation of sitting between my parents and listening to the radio.
By the time the war was over, he had a son too. But I was still Daddy's girl, not because I was his favorite, but because he was mine. My parents were devoted to each other and always mutually supportive, but Dad was more affectionate. We all knew that, if Mother was angry, you had best go to Daddy. He wouldn't overrule her, but he might save us from a spanking. He was more my kind of person, and he was the parent I emulated in school and in business. He was so proud when I got the job in the library, a job where I “wouldn't get my hands dirty.” (Little did he know.)
I brought home books for him to read; Mother didn't care for reading nearly as much. I discussed math and history with him; he was a whiz at computing prices in his head. He was the methodical one, and he was the one who could fix anything. Long before you could buy such things, he made me a screwdriver I could carry on my key chain.
Dad had various medical issues, which worsened as he got older. He had a cardiac bypass shortly after my second child was born. (Still in its infancy, the procedure gave us seven years that we would not have had otherwise.) When he was no longer able to drive himself to temple, my sister accompanied him whenever she could.
When we spent a couple of weeks at my parents' house, I learned that he still did the daily prayers by himself. A beautiful picture that remains in my mind is Dad sitting there with his prayer book on his lap, along with my Middle Daughter… I miss him.
