When I was thirty, I had my third child, my daughter. I was resting in the hospital bed after giving birth and saw movement near the door.
It was Dad. He had an empty Campbell’s soup can, label removed, which he turned into a vase for three home-grown daffodils.
I croaked, “Dad?”
He whispered, “Go back to sleep, Bean. I just wanted to say congratulations.” His right hand held the flowers, his left arm extended outward, hand tilted up from the wrist as if to indicate, “Hush, go back to sleep.” He set the soup can near the sink and left.
I had stayed away from him for years, by choice. I didn’t want him near my kids, and I didn’t want to be around him. His anger, his bigotry, his opinions that were always right and rarely kind were things I wanted no part of.
The daffodils at the hospital created an opening. I decided to send him pictures of the baby and of the boys periodically; I mailed him drawings the boys colored. In time, I accepted the occasional invitation to visit, but I always needed a way to leave quickly. Around Dad, even when he was in his sixties, I was on high alert, always on edge, anticipating something he might do or say that would require a quick retreat. He saw my kids, but rarely.
As the decades rolled by and Dad was in his eighties, he was losing his height and girth. Although he was physically less intimidating, his demeanor was only slightly more kind and thoughtful. He was still very black and white, and didn’t hesitate to provide an opinion to strangers when most would keep their mouth shut. When we met at a restaurant for breakfast, I never knew, as I walked him back to his car and could tell he was going to speak to a stranger, what was coming. Was he going to say something nice and lovely, like, “Oh, that is the best color coat you’re wearing”? Or was he going to say, “You parked like an ass. Are you always so selfish? How do you think someone else could park, since you took up two spaces?” When he pulled stunts like that, I spoke to the heavens and asked, Please, oh please, don’t let him get punched in the face. Please let people see him as old, frail, and maybe senile, so they won’t even think of hurting him.
At some point in his eighties, Dad stopped driving.
After that, instead of meeting for a meal, I went to his place on the occasional Sunday. Gradually, it became every Sunday.
Seeing him every Sunday was a sacrifice. I often worked six days a week. I was not someone with an abundance of energy. I could have used Sundays for errands, exercising, meal prep, or simply to rest.
It was a drain, and I admit that, but as he became less able to care for himself, and became more isolated because the majority of his friends had passed, I made the decision to continue making the 45 minute drive each way, praying for a parking spot, and to stay and help how I could.
As I matured and accepted him for who he had become, and as he softened (even his voice shifted from scary to just “Dad’s voice”), it provided a chance to look at things through a different lens. Although the backdrop of life with him was never fully forgotten, it was genuinely forgiven.
Dad kept his condo hot, always in the eighties. It made me nauseous, and I’d dehydrate quickly, even though I’d bring my own water bottle because I didn’t want to drink the water at his place. The television was always blaring. It hurt my brain, so I covertly turned the volume down when possible. Dad couldn’t hear it anyway. He’d tell Siri (who he called Sorry) to turn up the volume. He was talking to an Alexa device. I stopped correcting him and just gently helped him do whatever he was trying to do.
One weekend, I toasted his frozen waffle. I offered to cook from scratch, but some weeks he wanted his toaster waffle. I cut it into bites and served it with warm syrup, butter, fruit, and his orange juice with fiber stirred in. I delivered it on a tray directly to his lap. He spent his days on a recliner in the living room, rarely getting up, just to use the bathroom or get a snack. A telephone, TV remote, flossers, and dozens of other things, mostly sticky and gross things that he wanted to have handy, were within arm’s length of the recliner.
On days when he was especially weak, or his hands were shaky, I asked, “May I help just a bit?” He nodded, no words, and I gave him bites, allowing time for him to chew.
One Sunday, I had a conscious realization that I had either hated or been afraid of him so much of my life that I didn’t know him. I had no idea how he became the person I knew as a kid. Had his dad or parents treated him the way he had ruled us?
I decided to ask a safe question, but one I truly wanted to know.
As he sat in his leather recliner, feet elevated on an ottoman, a blue velveteen blanket over his lap, and a maroon knit hat on his head, I said, “How did you pick your career?”
“Huh, what’s that?”
“How did you decide what to do when you got out of the Navy?”
Dad did a few things to earn money, but his primary work was as an insurance broker. He briefly explained how he got into it, then said, “Did I tell you about the time so and so tried to get away with a false claim?”
“No, what are you talking about?” I asked as I took a seat on the plastic shower stool in his living room.
“When I was still new, one of my insureds bought a car. A few months later, he put in a claim. Said someone had smashed the windshield, so he needed insurance money to get it fixed. I asked a few questions, then said, ‘I’ll deliver the check to you.’ The guy said, ‘No, no, just put it in the mail.’ I said, ‘Nope, I insist. I want to make sure the check gets into your hands quickly so you can get that taken care of.’”
Dad continued, a devious sparkle in his blue eyes… “I hadn’t made an appointment; just said I’d come by. Something wasn’t right in Denmark. I went to his house, and there he was. He was in the garage, car parked out front. The windshield looked fine, not a crack in it. I handed him the claim check. He thanked me; I didn’t respond. I walked back to my car, pulled out a baseball bat from the back seat, walked up to his windshield, and smashed it.”
He pushed his head back into the chair and laughed. Sixty years later, he was still so proud of showing that guy.
I laughed. I could see the humor in the story; I could feel the instant karma.
The daughter inside me heard it differently. There he was again, brought to life in his story: judge, jury, and deliverer of punishment as he saw fit. As a girl, I’d seen that baseball bat a couple times. Never used on me, but in his arms, ready to use on someone if they did not comply.
My gut lurched for a moment. I had chosen to nurture a real relationship with him, to care for him as the person he had become, not the man I knew most of my life.
The man who needed help with breakfast was still, if only in his mind, the man with the bat.