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Dad Looking Out to Sea
When I was a growing up and well into my teen-age years, calling Eastport, Maine meant going through the operator: “Oh, it’s little Gabrielle!” she would announce to those who were present, and presumably they cared. “How are you deah?” she would ask in that wonderful Down East accent. After a few niceties, she would connect me to my Gramma Bea—WHEREVER she happened to be in town, because of course everyone knew everyone else’s business. I miss that.
This year –2010–began with an abrupt acknowledgement of my father’s mortality, when he was diagnosed with cancer. In one day, my father—my sister and I call him Doggy Daddy—went in to the doctor healthy, and came out with a diagnosis of cancer. How did this happen? Daddies aren’t supposed to become less than; they just “are.” He is far away in Eastport, Maine, and I am here in Central Texas, and there is no switchboard operator to tell me where he is at all hours of the day. In an age of cell phones, my father refuses to be that available. He has a routine, and those who know him know where to find him, but it requires physical presence or patience. Although his art studio is online, he has only in the past year started using e-mail, though he goes to the local coffee shop with his laptop, and he jokingly refers to e-mail addresses as “call signs.” I picture the twinkle in his eyes that matches his WWII stories about radioing HQ from the field, and I know he believes we are a primitive generation for replacing civilized letter writing and real conversation for the shortened half-sentences of delayed messages that are e-mails. Nevertheless, he has complied with his children’s wishes for “Please, Dad, we just want to hear your voice.” He raises his eyebrows, I know.
That man who lives so far away, a Dad who still feels oh-so-present and maybe even larger-than-life despite the decades and the roller coaster ride that is life. . . .is that how fathers are? I think of my baby pictures, and of Baby Gabrielle standing on his outstretched palm as he lifted me to the sky….. Wow! When I was a little girl, I took a great deal of comfort in thinking I had the strongest Daddy in the whole wide world! I laugh when I think of my healthy, handsome Dad who hung up the phone with an abrupt “click” the day he called to wish me love and happiness on my 40th birthday, when it suddenly occurred to him that time was passing. . . “So how old are you today, Honey?” he asked me. “I’m 40, Dad” I replied. Silence. “Then how old am I?” he asked. I told him. Click. Dial tone. . . . . .
His initial bout with cancer was so easy, we probably didn’t realize how dearly Fortunata had smiled upon us. We talked about how blessed we were to live in a day and age with the miracle of modern medicine, blah blah blah….and we all went back to Life—whatever that is! And then…..and then….WAM! This Thanksgiving he went into the hospital with all the alarm bells ringing, and now here we are again, but this time it’s quite serious. Now the real questions begin. How do I deal with the end times of my father, knowing that this is a normal part of life? I’ve been on the other side of this: the hugs & hand-holding, the reassurances & affirmations. I know that people I love & admire have walked this path before, of course!
Donald Sutherland
Now it’s my turn to be a daughter with a Daddy who is finally, old. Strange to think the words “old” and “Dad” in the same thought strand. He’s lost 20 pounds on a frame that was already light. He is weak, and at times his mind wanders. He cried for the first time, ever, in my hearing. At the signs of my father’s helplessness, my heart feels empty, cavernous, even, and I wonder sometimes where to place new & tender feelings. I am learning to know a different “version” of my Dad. Dads change. They grow old.
I have a good friend whose father joined Facebook about a year ago, and I friended him. His long status updates read like what someone would say as he walks out to fetch the mail, or what we might say in exchange to a neighbor over the garden fence. I can’t imagine my father adjusting to Facebook. In fact I tried to explain it to him once, and gave up. E-mail is probably going to be the extent of his reach. My friend’s father, however, is a delight, and I admire his ability to carry-over his sense of a former time into the new media tools of a present time. His Facebook posts remind me of my childhood . . . of a different time, of neighbors and a neighborhood when & where every “mom” in every house was present in a welcome home.
I start thinking. . . summer nights and kick-the-can with all the kids in the neighborhood gathered right up to the moment of suppertime when the dads came home from work and all the moms called us home and we hopped on our bikes until the next day. I think of winter days and paper dolls, or playing games indoors with friends where the negotiations for the “rules” of the games would sometimes take longer than the actual games themselves! We learned so much about ourselves and each other and I can’t imagine it any other way. I wouldn’t trade any of that for modern video games, and I have to admit I don’t understand the draw. On the other hand, I can’t say that my generation learned how to get along with each other OR “the other” through all that play or negotiation time either. Perhaps there is no “right” way to play or make friends.
I was struck by a comment in a New Media Seminar I attended this year from a participant who said that she looks at the status updates [on Facebook] from friends, and she only talks to those who aren’t listed. Wow. I wonder how many people use Facebook as a distancing mechanism? I’ve thought about Facebook a lot this week. How public is something like the sickness of one’s father? How do we project “mood” on Facebook and does it matter? How do I announce something so private and yet also important, knowing that others actually DO care and want to know? (I know that I want to know these things about my friends. . . . ) However, at a time like this, I find myself hiding from the superficiality. Maybe, I just exist in a private sphere at the moment, and social networking tools seem to exist for a more public use? Maybe the efficiency of it just seems suspect.
In real time, I want the real comfort of hands-on presence, and the people who actually know me and know my Daddy. I want to reminisce and sometimes rant and rave.
