My father

 Something you said once made me realize that I wasn’t portraying my father in the best light - which isn’t my intent, but also is not, not my intent.  I always hate when people talk about dead people and they portray them to be saints, or these honorable people, when in reality they were the opposite.  Or at the very least, they were human, with human flaws.  I don’t think it is respectable at all to protect someone’s honor if it is fake.  

When my father died, I was angry.  To my defense, I acknowledged that even then.  I had alot of things to be angry about.  Mostly, my father’s inactivity in his own health.  But also his lack of concern that his decisions affected other people.  That had a huge impact on my grieving process.  It wasn’t until he was gone 10 years that I was able to balance things out.  (I think I covered why I was angry somewhere else or at the very least I have spoken about it, and this is most probably why you thought I didn’t like him, or that I had a bad relationship with him) 

Certainly, I didn’t have the same relationship with him as I did with my mother.  I think I modeled our (yours & mine) relationship after my relationship with my mother to some extent - except I tried to alter my role in ways that I felt were better (boundaries).  But I did have a decent relationship with my father, in some ways. 

I don’t want to focus on the things that he wasn’t.  You should also know what he was.  First and foremost - he adored you.  He was absolutely in love with you.  I watched it happen.  Like something out of a movie:  you were lying on our hotel bed in West Virginia, and he was lying next to you, facing you, watching you.  (I have a picture of it!) Gently touching your little hands, just in awe.  I swear I could see little cartoon hearts coming from his eyes.  

My father was both cold and emotional.  He lived his life the way he wanted to live it.  And mostly he had no concern about how it may affect others.  He wasn’t interested in community or helping others.   He only did things he wanted to do.  Go to school events? Nope.  Try a new food? Nope.  Smoke? Yep.  Do drugs? Yep.  Worry about if it affected his daughter? Nope.  But every so often, he would get hit with a wave of emotion, and he was a blubbering mess.  Or he yelled.  Once he punched a hole in the wall (I was under 5, but I remember it).  For a long time I had a trauma reaction to yelling, especially male authority figures yelling.  It took therapy for me to figure out where it came from.  But he wasn’t obnoxious about it.  He wasn’t a callous dick.  You could live your life the way you wanted to, and he would live his.  

Even if he was emotionally unavailable at times, He was fun.  That’s how people remember him.  As fun.  He wasn’t the class clown or the comedian.  But he knew how to relax and let go.   If I learned how to love from my mother (completely, with my entire being), I learned how to have fun from my dad.  He loved amusement parks and gadgets, computers and rockNRoll.  

My dad loved music.  Classic Rock, Funk and a little Disco.  He was the one who taught me about classic rock.  It wasn’t Classic Rock to him though, it was just rock. He was the quintessential kid of the 60s.  He grew up during the time when all these classic rock artists began.  He experienced waiting for the next Beatles album to be released.  He was around when that new kid Jimi Hendrix came out.    He saw Cream (Clapton), Jefferson Airplane, and so many more in concert.  Some, at these small venues - I think it was called the Arena back then - but from the pictures it looked smaller than the College Music Hall - it looks more like Toad’s Place size.  His mother (in her Jehovah Witness insanity) at one point made him destroy ALL of his Beatles albums and merchandise.  (This is particularly crazy because he had some original releases that would have been worth alot of money - if he was able to keep things in good condition)  Once someone joked that “of course I had good classic rock knowledge, look who I was married to.”  HA!  I came into the marriage with that knowledge.  When I was about 15/16, I stopped listening to popular music, and turned to his collection for inspiration.  The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Jefferson Airplane, Jimi Hendrix, Crosby, Stills & Nash, The Who, Donovan.   He was my original Beatles tutor.  He took Mindy, cousin Nicolle & I to our first Beatles Convention.  (Think of like a comic book convention except for records. There were no celebrities there, only collectors - and a Beatles impression band called Beatlemania).   He particularly loved anything with horns - Chicago, Blood Sweat and Tears. Earth Wind and Fire, Tower of Power.  Some guy named Boz Scaggs (still have no idea who he is).  Later in life he dug Sade, Bruce Springsteen, AC/DC and Van Halen.  

 He would quiz me in the car about who was playing.  He joked once, 

“WHO is this?”

“I don’t know, WHO is this?”

“Correct.”  (it was the Who.  He thought it was so clever).

There are a few songs that remind me distinctly of my dad:  

“Oh What a Night (December 1963) by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  I can clearly ‘see’ my dad dancing in the living room at the apartment we shared in West Haven.  He danced a little like the gopher in Caddyshack.  (google it).  It was fucking adorable.

 

We danced to a song from the Lion King (he LOVED Disney animated movies.  He would play Lion King or Aladdin on the TV while he did chores around the house, at full volume, and sing along).  When he was preparing to move to Florida, I walked in on him crying his eyes out to “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” - he thought of himself as the “star crossed voyager”, “wide eyed wanderer”, “restless warrior”, “vagabond” - leaving me behind.  Not exactly what the song is about, though. 

He was a hobby photographer.  He loved taking photos of other things he loved  like roller coasters and fireworks, things that moved so fast that capturing them on film was challenging.  None of his photos exist now.  A mouse in his closet ate them.  He loved gadgets and toys.  When something would first come out - for example a remote control item, or a drone - he would have one.  He always had a gaming console.  Usually both a home unit (Xbox, Playstation, Wii) and a personal one (Gameboy, Switch).  And he also played PC games.  Ed & he actually played similar (first person shooter) games, although I don’t know if they played “together”.  Before I even met Ed, he was friends with my dad.  Sure, my dad was Ed’s pot dealer - but also the bonded over billiards and computers.  They went to computer shows/conventions together.  My dad built his own computer from the ground up a couple of times - remember this was ages ago, technology was different and not as accessible.  The last computer he built was a Gaming computer.  I guess he would be considered a gamer back then.  He loved science fiction TV and movies.  He is where I get my love of Star Wars and Star Trek.  He exposed me to Abbott & Costello (they are the originators of the “Who’s on First?” sketch), Groucho Marx, Laurel & Hardy and even the 3 Stooges.  Classic black and white comedy movies.  His first crush was Marilyn Monroe.  

When he moved to Key West, it was because he decided “If I am going to work my ass off and struggle day to day , I might as well do it in paradise.”  But it also gave him the freedom to live his life without the stressors that he had in Connecticut.  He could live his life the way he wanted and not have to worry about the people around him.  His friends, his boss, his mother.  Parenthood.  His crazy on-again, off-again girlfriend.  He did however, welcome friends and family to come visit, and he showed them around town, showed them a good time.  Because Dad knew how to have a good time.  

I think that my father thought that I judged him.  That I disapproved of him.  Mainly because he smoked pot.  It wasn’t the pot smoking that I cared about.  It was the fact that he did not care that decisions he made affected other people.  I didn’t care that he smoked pot, I hated that I could have been taken from them if they were caught or arrested.  I hated that I never felt safe in my own house because I feared the police would visit anyday.  I didn’t care that he dealt - I cared about that he did it out of our apartment and the first person the cops would look at was me not the bespectacled, middle-aged white man.  I understood that he was dying and broke, but how about that Ed & I almost lost the house.  When he was dying, and I mean - he was not doing well at.all. - he asked my permission if he could smoke pot.  And he was surprised at my reaction - Of course.  I don’t give a shit if you smoke Pot, Dad.  Have at it.  You are living an absolute nightmare, how can I judge you for wanting to ease it a bit?  

I suppose if he lived his life the way he wanted to live it - then his death makes sense.  He didn’t want to live a life in a wheelchair or with a prosthetic leg.  I don’t agree with it, and I do feel it was selfish, but if that was his decision, then I have to respect it.  I just am not sure if it was his decision.  I feel that he was drugged up on pain medicine that he was able to tune reality out.  Reality had its way with his body while he escaped it.