The Card
Father’s Day is June 20th. I know that for both my brother and myself, the first year without my father is going to be difficult, at best. I mentioned in my last post that I traveled to my parent’s house at the end of April to assist with going through my dad’s things and help to sell some collectables my dad had stocked away in boxes. Through that process, I found a few personal things that my dad kept, one of which was a hand-written Father’s Day card. It was kind of a tradition in our family that we would hand make cards for our parents for special occasions. This is common with some families even today. My father only kept two such cards that were from me. One was very generic with an opening page of “guess what”, followed by an inside note of “I Love You”. Short, sweet, and to the point. The second one has shaken me since reading it and has shaped me in a new way since that visit.
Before I go on, I loved my father in a unique way. He was quite an angry person when I was young, but as he got older, he mellowed out on most things and we became much closer to each other. I was aware of this as a child, but I didn’t put any thought into how it affected me when I was younger or how it would shape me as I matured. The card I lovingly made for my father was not so loving and beautiful as I may have thought it was many years ago.
Page 1
This was innocent enough. It was a setup of the pages to come. “A look at my dad” meant you would see my dad through my eyes. It appears he was the #1 dad.
Page 2
I don’t claim to remember what made me use the words I did when I was that young, but the word “different” is ambiguous enough here. It is a word I would use today for someone or something that was not right, but not entirely wrong in the same sense. The speaking bubble above my father’s head reads; “Gosh darnit you stupid thing!”. My father was notorious for yelling and cursing at things with a passionate anger. Most of the time it was inanimate objects and a good amount of those was related to his cars. My picture of him showing his lack of hair and patience pains me even now to look at. One of the things I learned from this entire process was that we, as people, live our lives backwards. We should be happy and loving early in life when it matters the most and frustrated and cranky when we are older. My dad was very loving and kind the last 5-10 years of his life. More so than all the years before that. It seems I was aware of my fathers’ frustrations and anger at quite a young age.
Page 3
“Always watching money”. While I don’t exactly have an issue with this one in general, it is the delivery in the picture that stands out to me. “You kids want money AGAIN?”. I know that my father dealt with layoffs at the steel foundry where he worked in his last few years there. Prior to that, he made very good money in a profession that was booming in that part of the country. That stark contrast of having excess and being forced into a situation where money was tight all the time helped me learn something for my life. This page doesn’t ring as strong as page 1 does with me. I knew money was tight, but I don’t remember asking for money on a regular basis, prompting my father to say this. It does refer back to page 2 in showing the frustrated side of my father. One good takeaway from this page is I will always remember my dad sitting and reading the paper. He read it front to back almost daily. He rarely shared any of the stories while reading it, nor spoke a word, but he would be lost in it for an hour or two non-stop. That rustling of the pages will forever echo in my psyche.
Page 4
My father struggled with his weight all his life. He was overweight as long as I can remember and I can remember waking up some mornings when I was younger to him exercising in his bedroom before leaving for work. His weight contributed to many of his problems later in his life, including back and spine problems, arthritis, and diabetes. My mom, as a retired aerobics instructor, kept on him till the last day to stop eating snacks and sweets. He loved to eat and I think he even said late in life one time to me that he eats what he wants because it makes him happy. This fact is still not something to add to a Father’s Day card, even as a child. This page embarrassed me quite a bit when I read it. Even the picture makes me cringe to look at. The word ‘but’ in that sentence carries all it implies in a sentence. “in contrast to something else, there is this.”
Lessons
I hate myself for ever making this card for my father. It is probably not the right feeling to have, but I can’t imagine what he must have felt when I handed this to him. Pride, happiness, and joy only to read through the pages and be faced with every shortcoming he had at that time. It is one of only two cards I found in his thousands of pieces of paper he collected and saved in his life. The only reason I can think of for keeping something like this is to have a reminder of attitudes and practices that need to be corrected. I didn’t see much change in some of these behaviors until the last few years of his life and even then, it was a softening, more than an outright change. I have stepped back in my life to see myself in another light because of this. I have already been working on anger management, personal growth, connection with my family, and my weight, but this hit home hard.
I have asked my 13-year-old son for one thing this Father’s Day. I asked for him to draw a card with three things that stand out about me to him. This could go horribly wrong or I could be surprised by good things that I was not even aware of. Either way, I want to grow from it and be a better person to this world. I am not saying my father was a bad person. I loved him dearly and will always cherish every moment in my memory, the good and the bad.
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there. Be sure to look in the mirror after everyone has looked at you all day and see what you can do to be a better person to your kids next year!
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