I remember baseball when the grass was real. That was a long time ago. I had a blue bike then, and rode it sometimes, even though my dad and aunt couldn’t walk and my mom, who never had a bike, paid a neighbor’s son to teach me how. Other kids were taught by their dad.
My dad never took me anywhere, never spent time with me. I doubt either one of us even considered that as it was outside the realm of possibility, at a time when alternate reality hadn’t yet been invented.
In real life, I never got his attention, but sometimes got my mom’s. He would turn and look at me vacantly as if he wasn’t quite sure who I was. And then he would quickly dive back into his book or his newspaper, as if he were nailed shut with no trespassing signs.
Monday through Friday were motherless days and even when she was there, she often did not have much time for me due to her other kids. Nietzsche said more than a century ago that there are no facts, only perspectives on facts.
Nevertheless, these are the facts as I know them. In my first life, I drew pictures of families. I wanted to be like them. Mom stayed at home. Dad went to work. Grandmas pulled pies out of ovens; did not perish in them.
I wanted my dad to be the strongest, the biggest and the best dad in the world. Or even a dad, any dad at all. One who could walk and work and could hug me and like me. Instead he was crippled, silent, locked away. His face looked closed, like a cabinet.
My dad died on July 2 — nearly six decades ago. He took neon pink pills in just the right quantity, but I didn’t know it at the time. Neither did anyone else. I was eighteen. He didn’t leave a note.
You manage so beautifully to get a whole biography, with side characters, in just a few lines. I feel as though I met your dad. That is, I recognize him, but probably no one knew him. And no one was ever what he wanted. What would a note tell us, us survivors of our father's suicides? "So there!"? "It's your fault!"? "Take that!"? "I didn't love you enough."?
A difficult read. But true for too many. My parents weren’t ready, 20 and 15. A guy home from the war and a child. Grandpa was quiet and distant, like Dad, like me. Mom grew into her role. Dad and went fishing and hunting. They never came to my sports games. Later, he would ask how my car was running. He cared. I held his hand when he died. I cried.