Can You Hear Me Now

I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.

Harriet Tubman

July 8th was the 9th anniversary of my father’s death. He died at a memory care facility in Scottsdale, Arizona. I was at a Thai restaurant with Linda and our youngest son when my sister, Janet, called to tell me of his passing. She called twice. I didn’t answer the first time and when she called again a few seconds later I knew that something big had occurred.

I wrote this in 2012 after returning from a trip back to Arizona. I’ve had it tucked away for many years and decided to give it a home here on my blog. It’s something I need to remember.

I am presenting it as it was written. It isn’t pretty, but I don’t want to whitewash the past. It wasn’t easy to write and it’s even harder to read. Do with it what you will.

I have become a stranger to my father. His mind and memory have been fading away for a number of years, but this trip made it apparent that he no longer knows who I am. For the most part his reaction to me has been one of bewilderment, but on a few occasions my presence has caused him great agitation. I leave the room and he grills my mother about “that person in his house.” She tells him that I am his son, but even the idea that he has a son has become incomprehensible.

There is a sad irony to all of this. For as long as I can remember I have been something of a stranger to my father. Even before his mind left him, he never took the time to pay much attention to his children’s lives. Ask him the names of any of the places I worked. He wouldn’t know a single one. Ask him the color of my eyes. He would have no idea. I doubt he knew my birthday, middle name, religious or political affiliations. None of that was ever important to him. I was a mouth to feed and someone to cut his grass. He is now 88 years old, rattled with dementia and the opportunity to understand anything about me has come and gone.

I never knew my father’s father. He died before I was born. What I do know is from my mother and she tells me he was a horrible man – an abusive drunk who worked in the coal mines of western Pennsylvania. My father would never speak of him. Not once.

We all carry the scars of our childhood. I know that I do. I also know that I see those scars for what they are and will not allow them to rule my life. Apparently, my father gave into his scars. He let his scars define who he is and never made an effort to heal or at least bandage them.

I’ve learned a number of things on this trip back to Arizona that add to the puzzle that is my father. My oldest brother, Richard, told me that before I was born my father was a terrible drinker. He remembers times when Dad came home reeking and reeling from alcohol. My mother and father have always fought with one another, but Richard tells me that the fights back then were much worse than anything I ever experienced. However, for reasons that I may never understand, the drinking stopped when I was born. Dad went from a drunk to a casual social drinker. How and why?

I fly back to Minnesota today with a sense of emptiness. I am sad for what this man has become. I am sad for the relationship we never had. I’ve long since given up believing that any warmth would ever spring from his cold, hard heart, but this week has made it apparent that I just don’t care anymore.

Yes, I said it. I just don’t care. We get a lot of chances in life to make amends for our mistakes and shortcomings, but my father has squandered the only thing that ever really mattered in his life — his family. I can say that we’ve become the forgotten ones, but that’s not accurate. We were never there to be remembered. He has become the product of his actions. He will die, but he won’t be missed. Soon, he will not be remembered. This is the legacy he leaves his children.

This is what this man has done to me. This is the one scar that may never heal.

One step forward
takes me two steps away

Even foot-still standing
we ever fade from one another
until the distance between
is equal to the invisible line that calls us strangers

Caution, you are reaching the end of the moving walkway