bjturk.commentary: father's day 2000

bjturk.commentary
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this bjturk.commentary:
father's day 2000

It's a bittersweet father's day for me this year. I have two children, ages nine and five, who know that I adore them and bring me joy every day. Without a doubt, I feel that I am well and truly blessed to have them, and words cannot express how the love I receive from them daily makes me feel. For that matter, there are no words to adequately describe how loving them makes me feel. It is the closest thing to pure ecstacy that I have ever felt.

On the other hand, I have been estranged from my own father for many years. Though he lives less than an hour's drive away, I haven't seen him since my youngest child was born, and I only hear from him once or twice a year, if the spirit moves him. I am embarrassed to admit that I have made no effort to contact him in quite some time. His absence from my life makes me sad, and that sadness is emphasized at Father's Day every year.

Our estrangement has been the result of misunderstandings, stubbornness, hurt feelings and many other things that ultimately have little bearing today. Over time, I have learned that the longer a grudge is carried, the heavier it gets. Bearing this kind of burden for this long has become too wearying to continue, and I want it to stop. I'm tired, I'm hurt, and I've no desire to stay this way.

I have spent the last couple of months pondering my feelings and why I have them. It's not so much that I've sought justification, but some kind of reason. This applies either way — justifying my own feelings and rationalizing their validity. Along the way, I have drawn a rather interesting conclusion in both respects.

One of the biggest criticisms that I held against my father was that he wasn't much of a father. Looking at the history, though, he was not in a position to be much of one in the first place. Parenthood is an on-the-job learning experience. My parents were divorced when I was very young, so he did not have the benefit of the 24x7x365 experience that I have had with my own children. He wasn't there to read me bedtime stories, he wasn't there to teach me to read, he wasn't there to check over my homework. He got less than half of the 24x7x365 experience with me than I have had with my youngest. He never got the experience to learn to be a father.

When I was thrust into his life on a full-time basis at the age of 15, it was as if one stranger had moved in with another. We didn't talk much because we didn't know each other very well, and we didn't know how to talk to each other at all. We were in the same house, but in two very different worlds. He supported me very well in every respect, and when he asked me to move out at age 21, it was one of the best things he could have done for me, though I didn't think so at the time. I have come to appreciate the agony that would accompany making such a decision and seeing it through.

I miss my dad. I just haven't set aside my pride long enough to pick up the phone and call. I know that he'd like it, and I know that I would too. I know now that it isn't his fault that he isn't the father that I think he should have been. All he is is the father that I have, and that I love. He's not a superman, and he's not a mindreader, and he's not God. He's just a man, with all the faults and foibles that afflict us all.

It's unfair for me to condemn my father for poor performance when he got so little training. It's also unfair for me to keep my distance for such a patently-invalid reason. I love my dad, and I miss him more than I allow myself to believe. Happy Father's Day, Dad. I'm sorry that I haven't been at least as good a son to you as you have been a father to me.

To my own children, I am a superman, and a mindreader, and, to some degree, a god. I wonder how I will feel when they realize that I am none of those things. I wonder how different they will treat me then.

I wonder if they will go five years without calling me, too.

June 14, 2000

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