Dad's birthday

My dad’s 85th birthday is today. When he was a boy, having a birthday so close to Christmas could be problematic. One year his parents completely forgot his special day. When I heard that, I told myself that I would remember each year no matter what.

So I’ll be sure to call him today. The card has already been sent. If I was feeling better I might try to make a run to see him. It’s a 500 mile run, though, and as far as I know, there aren’t any festivities planned. My one sister was down from Boston for the weekend before Christmas to see him, but she had to turn right around and go home when she realized she’d suffered another tear in her retina. Our youngest and his girlfriend were there on Christmas Eve. What I’m driving at, is that this year is not a year when everyone can be there.

My sister said something very perceptive about our father on the phone the other day. Speaking of his children, she said, “He’s just not very interested in us.”

That’s probably so. He figures he did his bit, we are all in our fifties now, we have our own families, our own lives; he’s content to be an outside observer, like an old family friend invited to holiday gatherings out of habit and respect.

In our families, Kathy’s and mine, it was Mom who held things together. After each of our mothers died, the bonds of family loosened, then unraveled. There seemed to be less reason to come together. Distances that meant nothing years ago were now formidable barriers. Irksome personalities that we tolerated are now revealed as racist, profane, bullying people that are no longer welcome in our homes. We certainly will not travel miles and miles to suffer their presence. We used to do it for Mom, but Mom’s gone. So is our capacity to endure those full frontal swarms.

Mom’s gone and Dad’s not interested. For many people, that was their experience from an early age, but not for us. Two parent family, parents stayed married, lost one child to cancer, kept going, were touching role models for all four of us survivors who also got married, stayed married all these years.

I remember when I realized I was no longer the center of my father’s universe, worthy of all mindfulness. I was teaching in the town where we all grew up and where he still lived. After a late night at school, probably working at a wrestling match or something that would pay an extra ten dollars, I swung by his house and saw him in a neighbor’s garage. I bounded over like a puppy expecting to capture his full attention just by my appearance. He kept talking to the other guy, probably said hi to me, but turned back to the engine of the old car the guy had been working on. I slunk away to go say hi to Mom. I got the point.

He left for work everyday around six and got home again about six. He always made sure he was home for dinner with us, no matter what. He was a civil engineer selling steel for Republic Steel in New York City. He worked out estimates, visited work sites, talked to contractors—he was very good at his job. So good, the company kept offering him a promotion to sales manager and he kept turning them down. When I asked him why, he said, “Officers get shot first”—a lesson he learned on the battlefields of World War II in France.

He never talked about his experience in the war. What we knew about that, we learned from Mom. She related one story about how dad had been knocked out by a mortar shell explosion. When he woke up in the hospital, they wanted to make him a lieutenant. He said no thanks.

It was true: sales managers were routinely fired, while salesmen stayed on, plugging away. Somehow he and my mother put all five of us kids through college and launched us all into adulthood.

So, while he didn’t say that much, I learned a lot by his example. I too am leery of promotions that might make me vulnerable. I try to let my kids live their lives as the adults they are without interference. Thanks to him, I know how to set up and take down a campsite (though there’s not much call for that knowledge these days).

So I’ll call him today and wish him a happy birthday whether he wants me to or not.