Remembering

In the quiet I gaze at you as you sleep. It’s not the sleep of health but drug induced to alleviate the effects of your illness that your frail form can’t withstand. Your gray hair; I don’t remember it every being the red of your youth and I can’t imagine you as a freckle-faced child though I see it passed onto my own son. You were always ageless to me, not young nor old....just you. I see now the lines of time etched on your face no longer obscured but revealed by the loss of weight. How often I’ve looked into that face attempting to see what of myself came from you, my female features smaller yet somehow similar. Your hands, always so capable and the hands by which I determine the strength of any man, now lay idle except for the occasional motion brought on by your dreams. I hope your dreams are pleasant though I can’t tell from your expressions.

Time is creeping by though I hear the busy pace outside the door. I’ve nothing to do but sit here with my thoughts waiting for you to awaken. Sometimes I fear that you won’t. I wonder if you have any idea what effect your life has upon my own; if you’ve ever know that. There is a part of me that belongs only to you as your daughter. My thoughts and beliefs mirror so much of the person you are and yet are uniquely my own for the added benefit of my own experiences. The foundation I’ve built upon was formed by you and you continued to add to the building of my life and, though the building is far from complete, I am less one of my craftsmen. I can complete the process for myself but I’d rather not have to.

Memories arise with each passing thought and they keep me company. I used to come to your business as a child and plunder your employees’ desks in search of something interesting I could take away with me. As an adult, I know what it means to return to work and find missing items necessary for your job and yet you never scolded me for the taking but replaced the items instead. I sat quietly watching your interaction with employees and businessmen alike and learned that a business could be built on ethics. I listened to the comments of those who often ignored the child I was and learned to look at you not only as my father but as a man whom others respected. Years later when you brought me in to work for you, insisting I learn the value of work instead of being supported, you made me the standard by which other employees were to behave. I was the one who couldn’t be late, stand idle, or gossip idly when things were to be done. Despite the fact that you were my father and my boss I sometimes wanted to go against your dictates but couldn’t due to the logic that could be found within them.

Logic and it’s inescapable effects. How many times did the five of us sit around the dining table for hours on end while we received lectures which you thought more effective than harsher discipline? For a child, a spanking would have been preferable because it would have lasted only moments. We’d spend the time making faces at one another and kicking each other beneath the table when you weren’t looking. Eventually we’d tire and lay our heads down in hopes you’d get the message that we surrendered to your wisdom and authority. I’ll definitely never forget the ‘little lady’ talk I received when allowing you to hear me say a four-letter word after raising from the refrigerator and banging my head on the opened freezer door. Two hours of "a little lady does this, and a little lady doesn’t do that" kind of burns into your memory what exactly a lady is supposed to be.

Spankings! Why was it that we seldom were alone in our spankings? I can remember the five of us ganging up on you and refusing to tell who was to blame and therefore we all got the same punishment but, to be honest, I’m not sure if we ever really knew who was truly to blame since we carried the musketeer’s motto, "all for one, one for all" at heart. I really hated that belt of yours, even though it was seldom used, but preferred it to the keen switch Mother and Grandmother opted to use.

You never remarried and I often wondered why exactly that was. Did you not want to saddle another woman with us five or did we steadfastly refuse another woman in our home? Did you love my mother to the extent that you could never replace her? Was it enough for you that out of your five there were three girls who could tend house and look after home matters? I think it is most likely a little of all combined. I know you were passionate about my mother from watching you go through years of anger and acceptance. I wish we’d been more open to another woman in your life and, though I don’t remember any incidences where we were rude to anyone, I’m sure we played a part in your solitude. Routine and time made it easier for each of us girls in turn to take over running the household and perhaps made it easier to ignore the absence of someone else whose place it should have been.

Oh well, that’s water under the bridge and I know I’ll never ask you these questions. It does, however, bring to mind something I still find humorous and touching to this day. Because you were unmarried, it was unusual for you to be seen in public in the company of a woman. When I became of the age to vote, you decided to introduce me to the process. I can remember showing up at the courthouse arm in arm with you and receiving the speculative looks from the businessmen at the polls. You grinned at me because you too knew what they were thinking and yet your smile took on more depth when you introduced me as your daughter There was pride evident in the manner in which you did that and the looks on their faces also took on a different quality. Thank you for that.

You have always believed in me but you’ve also been my staunchest critic, much as I am with my own children. There was a day when I was feeling particularly confident and must have been preening for you made one comment to me which deflated my ego completely. "Pretty is as pretty does." You went on to stress how important it was to be confident in ourselves but to not be arrogant about it. Yes, I still feel the sting of the polite reminder you gave me for every girl wants to be pretty, but I thank you just the same for the lesson learned. Looks are an advantage but they don’t make the person.

Another quote from you I often refer back to is "believe only half of what you see and nothing of what you hear" for the truth of what you see is based on your perception alone and the words carried by another are seldom first hand. There is a story behind everything but it is in our perception and in others’ honest delivery as to the validity of that story. When I hear the gossip of others or when I see something that raises flags in my mind I have to stop and question and not just assume. Knowledge is power but fact must be separated from fiction.

Fiction. You hated it that I spent all my time reading for you were afraid that I was wasting all my time on romance novels which you thought totally worthless. I was always your quiet child, the thinker, and you tried many times to bring me out of myself but eventually gave up. I didn’t, however, spend all my time on novels. I just preferred solitude and quiet to the confusion offered by the rest of the household. I have to wonder if you remember the time you decided to do some work in the bedroom I then shared with my sister and took the bed apart just to find between the mattresses several copies of the latest men’s magazines. Oh my! Another lecture around the round table. I couldn’t very well tell you that they belonged to my brother and I’d found them and hidden them so you wouldn’t run across them. Of course, now thinking back, I can only imagine what went through your mind regarding me possibly looking at pictures of naked women. At that time, I was totally oblivious to sex much less same sex relationships and it would never have occurred to me.

Sex was another lecture in itself. After two older sisters and reading everything in sight, there was little I didn’t know about the workings of the bodies after a while. It did not prepare me for the actual act or the consequences of it. When I was introduced to it by a long-time boyfriend you must have sensed the change in me or perhaps the change in the relationship I had with the guy for you watched our interaction one day and then when he’d left you cornered me and made me sit at the table. You didn’t waver in your discussion but went right to the matter by asking, "So, how long have you been having sex?" Had you asked was I having sex I might would have denied it, or tried at least. Instead, you attacked it as foregone knowledge and I had to question what you knew. You always had me convinced you had your ways of knowing what each of your children were up to and I found it futile to skirt the truth. You often teased that you had eyes everywhere. Needless to say, you curtailed my freedom after that and I eventually lost the boyfriend but all’s well that ends well, as they say.

Haha, you just felt for your glasses on your face and yet you’ve got them pushed far up on your forehead at the moment. You’re still not awake so I don’t know if it’s something you’re dreaming or a near conscious reflex. How you wear those heavy glasses is beyond me and yet you have no desire for the more modern, lighter weight frames being offered. I just realized I have no idea how old you were when you started wearing glasses though I do know you are farsighted and not so much to the extent of my own nearsightedness.

We were talking just the other day about my first pair of eyeglasses. Six years of school and avoidance of sports which involved balls of any sort coming out of nowhere at fast speeds. Even on the front row in class I couldn’t see the chalkboard unless I squinted or made my eyes tear up which created a magnifying effect. Otherwise, I would sit beneath the chalkboard so as not to block the other students’s view and copy my work from there. I don’t remember which teacher brought your attention to it but I do recall standing with you at home as I tried out my glasses for the first time and realized just how much I’d been missing. How old was I? Twelve or thirteen, perhaps? All of sudden there were individual leaves on the trees instead of great green indefinite shapes and birds in the sky instead of just a streak of dark against the light. I think you apologized to me because you never realized I couldn’t see but the apology was unnecessary because I’d never realized it myself. It was all normal to me. I do remember sitting outside on the back steps for a long time that first night counting the stars I’d never seen but knew existed.

Of course, it wasn’t long before vanity warred with my desire to see the world and the fact that they gave me a headache aided that vanity. You didn’t wear glasses unless you were a ‘nerd’ and so I put them away while in public and so still avoided sports and anything that came upon me suddenly. Vanity! What is it worth? Very little. They had only hard contact lenses back then and I refused to wear them and risk my eyesight......little that I seemed to have. Of course, as a teenager, I was often told I was stuck-up because I seldom spoke to anyone. What they didn’t know was that if they were further than a few feet from me I couldn’t see them to determine whether I knew them or not. Maybe that’s why I got into the habit of smiling at everyone, so that I wouldn’t be insulting those who deserved recognition. Oh well, that’s a habit I’m glad I have despite the catalyst for I’ve found a smile is extremely important and beneficial in dealing with most people if for no other reason than the goodwill it represents.

Dealing with others is something else I got from you. You never judged anyone by class, race or by any distinction other than their individual effort, honesty, and integrity. I think the thing you hated most of all was laziness. It irked you to see the waste of intelligence and physical ability when a little effort was all that was required of anyone to succeed. You were willing to help anyone who helped themselves and felt little pity for those healthy individuals who bemoaned their fate while less fortunate individuals deserved your concern. On the other hand, you were wary of pride and it’s ability to hinder any man from doing what was required in life. You considered digging a ditch on par with being a doctor, both honorable professions.

Oh well, you know all these things and I could go on and on reminiscing but it’s about time for the drugs to wear off and you’re getting restless. I’ve no doubts you’ll make it through this bout of illness as you have all the ones before it but I worry about the future. I can’t imagine life without you in it and though I know I’ll face that one day, today is not the day. You’ve just opened your eyes and are now trying to clear the fog from your mind. You grin at me and I know it won’t be long now and these quiet moments will be over. So, until next time, Dad, thank you and know that I love you.