Wildly and Full of Hope

I think of my Daddy often, and always on Fathers’ Day.

When I first told someone about my father, they didn’t believe me. Later, when they did, they said, Don’t be a victim. I remember being called a bitch when I condemned men’s tears as manipulative. When I cried, someone said, Act like you’re fine.

Eventually, I was believed. The people who loved me best, who listened to my words and took them as my shared truth, held my hand while I told my stories. They, too, had stories.

When I told them of my father’s gentleness, they couldn’t comprehend. Or rather, they struggled to hold the contradiction. How can the man who hits slip sloppy barrettes into a little girl’s fine hair? How can the man who bashes bodies into walls and floors grant me permission - against my mother’s wishes - to let me shave my legs so I might be a little more comfortable in my own skin after a classmate teased me? He brought me clean clothes when I needed them most, placed wide, shaky hands on my middle when I had kidney stones and severe IBS, trying to understand my pain so that he might help heal it. He told me his stories, sometimes against my will, but often while we sat in peace in the Texas shade watching the blaze of sun move across the sky. He was ice cream and Nintendo and laughing in the pool, a rainbow spray from the hose. He was bad jokes, tacos and green olives eaten from the jar lid, tears when listening to music he loved, a sailor’s mouth and rough around every edge but he was ours.

I was not a wanted baby, but when he became a father, I was wanted more than anything.

More than one thing can be true at the same time.

My father taught me about shades of gray, about relativity, about looking at the world from multiple angles so that I might understand beyond a single-sided point of view. He was a preacher’s kid, but constantly questioning, even while desperately wanting to believe. He was a gentle soul who worshiped trees and loved to garden, even while he sank beneath the weight of fear, insecurity, and discouragement. Alcohol was his crutch. We all have at least one, even if minimal.

I think of my Daddy often, and always on Fathers’ Day. Most of my life he embittered me toward children, saying again and again, They will ruin your life. In some ways this robbed me of making a decision about parenthood when my fertility might have been salvaged - but more meaningfully, I remember what he said before he died, how he softened, saying, If you want children, have them, just know they may break your heart. They may be wonderful and give your life purpose, or they may be very, very hard. You do not get to choose. You love who is yours. So be sure.

My father, always teaching me to see all sides. And in so many ways, this very thing came true, but that is for another post.

Even then I could hear what he was trying to say. I was loved. I was wanted. Parenthood may have ruined his life to some degree, but I did not.

My father loved Alaska. He was fascinated by its history, its mystery, its untamed beauty and wildness. He never made it here, until now.

Sitting next to me, as I write these words, are some of my father’s ashes. I ran my fingers through them when I packed the container, feeling his bones crumble to dust in my palms. I sprinkled some in my flowerbeds, and mixed some into soil in a pot with flowers from a plant exchange, admonishing him not to kill this gift for my mother. For days when I looked at the soil beneath my hostas and milkweed, the day lilies and bleeding heart, irises and marigold seedlings, I could see pieces of the man who made me.

When I get to the tundra I will set this part of him free. A little of him is in Texas on his parent’s graves. A little of him is in Massachusetts, my New England heart. A little of him will soon be in Alaska, as far from everything as he might have ever dreamed, wildly and full of hopeful adventure.

People are complicated. Sometimes they are cruel. Sometimes they are compassionate. Both can coexist, and so it is up to us to cultivate the compassion within ourselves and one another, to rip the cruelty by the root. I was a child, and even while I lament the ways I failed my father, I recognize that he also failed me. Now I am an adult, capable of reframing my own narrative, of telling my own story from a different point of view.

He was dying of cancer, but his actual demise was suicide. He wrote us each a note, and I am broken-hearted to say that mine has been lost in one of our many moves. I am hopeful that one day I find it, but even if I never do, I know what it said.

It said, I love you.

Unwritten, it said, I’m glad you were born. I am glad I was your father.

Me too, Daddy. Me too.

Happy Fathers’ Day, to my daddy and yours - and to all the people who father and love as fathers love. The world needs your hearts and souls. We need your big, big love.