Today I called my father for the first time in a years. It was with a bit of hesitation and not without dread. You see, my father and I have always been the same person: open with our opinions but guarded with our moods. Always looking to take you down before you got to us, and never willing to miss an opportunity to make you feel dumb. The second to last time I spoke with my father, it was to answer a question for my now six year old son. He wanted to know where his grandfather was (out of state) and if he was still alive (yes). When I told him where he was (Hawaii) he wanted to ask him a question about volcanoes, because he was four, and it interested him to know that someone that he didn’t know, yet was connected to him was in a land (in his mind) where volcanoes ran free with dinosaurs and ninjas and bubble guppies. I don’t know. I’m not four.
So we called my dad up, and my son was trembling with excitement. The last time he had seen my dad was when he was a year old and we went on a vacation with a bunch of family members. My dad spent most of that vacation brooding over one thing or another, and I remember not wanting to be the cause of his ire, so we did not cross paths. Since my son never left my side for the most part, they did not cross paths, either.
My dad answered the phone. In my memories, I recall him answering with a curt “What do you want?”
Now I could be changing his words because of a hazy memory, or because of what happened next. Either way, what transpired next was what severed the relationship. I put my son on the phone, who was literally trembling like a puppy with the excitement of speaking with his grandfather. The only other grandfather he knew is a wonderful man, and I’m sure that he expected my dad to be the same. I’m sorry that I didn’t warn you, son. I didn’t know how.
My son got on the phone and started talking. To know my son is to know that he is a talker, born of a family of talkers, and at four, he didn’t really know how to formulate his thoughts into a concise statement, so he rambled. I remember the huge smile on his face when he got on the phone, and the mash up of conversations that he wanted to have resembled a ten car pile up on the freeway. It ranged from have you seen a volcano, to are you my grandfather, to are you a ninja, to how is Hawaii, to I can spell Hawaii, all in one breath. It was the dawn of a tender moment, and I waited to see what the response would be from my dad.
So when my dad responded with a huffy “I haven’t seen any volcanoes,” and that was the kindest response to my son’s inquiries, as I watched my son’s face collapse like a balloon with a pin prick in it, as I heard the boredom and almost contempt in my dad’s voice as he spoke with my son for the first time, THE FIRST TIME that my son was able to talk with him with actual sentences and clear thoughts, I broke. My son handed me the phone and went upstairs to be with his mom. His shoulders slumped, and he told me that he was suddenly “Tired”. I understood. And I despised my dad for it. I got on the phone to advise my dad that he disappointed my son, but I got a dial tone. He had already hung up.
He never saw my son again after that. He never called him, never made contact. My older daughter spoke with him all the time. He would call her mom (we are separated) and would talk to my daughter that way. He arranged for her to fly out to Hawaii to spend time with him and his wife. None of that was offered to my son, and that made me despise him further.
As a kid, I remember many of the conversations that I had with my dad. Often, they began, ended, or both with an argument. Only twice did they end with the words, I love you. I initiated those conversations, and I remember the pause, the open air silence, the chasm in our thoughts before he answered me in kind. I floated through the day the first time I heard that statement from him. I was probably nine.
More often though, I remember the argument conversations and the inanity of them all. The Military Conversation. The Mama’s Boy Conversation. The Long and Awkward Ride to Washington When I Sat in the Front Seat Conversation. None of them came with warning, all of them struck with venom, and all of them stung for life.
As I got older, I realized that I, too was becoming hostile, quick tempered, jaded, and also very reclusive. I was becoming more and more like the man that I had grown up studying, but never really knowing. I began to experience situations and issues that I know that he had gone through, and I wished more than once that I could talk with him to get his opinion, his words, his help. But I couldn’t. I did not want to give him another opportunity to verbally lacerate me. I didn’t want to open that door for derision. So I didn’t. I muddled through my young adult years and most of my twenties finding help from my girlfriend’s father, and then from my wife’s father. Both were (and are) a great help. Neither can fill the void that was there.
A year ago, I had a breakdown, and called my mom. I had walked away from my job, and was blindly walking up and down the street. I was in hysterics, and the only thing I kept saying to her is “I want to talk to my dad. I miss my dad.” She calmed me as much as she could, considering that I likely scared her to death, and we hung up. The next call I received was my dad. I blubbered in his ear for about fifteen minutes about how I missed him and how I was not crazy and how I needed him in our lives, and he just listened. I know he said things back, and I wish to God that I could recall ANY of them, but I cannot. That was the second time he said I love you. It was also the last time we spoke.
I looked his number up in my contact list this morning. I was going to call him to wish him a Happy Father’s Day, and to let him know that I loved him but that we needed to really talk. I needed to understand the gap between him and my family, and the gap between he and I. It wasn’t as if he were dead, he just wasn’t interested in my family, and I wanted to fix that. If it took a day, or if it took a year, I wanted to fix that, and I was willing to work as long as it would take to make sure that both of his grandchildren knew him, and that my wife knew her father in law the way I know mine. I woke up this morning with that as my set goal.
*Doo, doo, dooooooo. The number you have dialed has been disconnected, or is no longer in service.*
He had disconnected his number, and I didn’t have any number in its place.
Rather than hunt it down (which I could do at any time) I’ve decided that this is the way that it is supposed to be. Instead of trying to regain contact with my dad, I simply hit the button to delete his information from my phone.
He would’ve wanted it that way. Happy Father’s Day, dad.