Equal Time for Daddy

I hint about him, his gentleness, his womanizing, the big man on the periphery.  I mostly focus on my mother with my brother Jim in the shadows, lurking.

But I had a Dad and a Daddy, both. Too absent, sometimes, but not always. Not at bedtime when I was smaller than the length of his legs. Not when I had to be lifted into his big chair, the chair that held the scent of him a full  year after he died. Old Spice and something uniquely him. Snigglefritz and bitty bit. I was his Jetty, mostly.

We curled up in his chair, Jacky and I, one on each leg, while her read Wind in the Willows, doing every single voice just so. Or Robin Hood and, finally, the Scarlet Pimpernell. I do not remember the stories, just the rumble of his voice against my ear. He tickled. I never stayed awake, and somewhere between Toad and Mole, Marion and Friar Tuck, somewhere in the halfway world of voice and sleep, my daddy's arms held me above the mess. Held me above the dangers, the worries, the day's trapped noises, carrying me to my bed as if I were nothing but a rather small pillow. I hear him talking to Jack, falling deeper, I feel the sandpaper on my cheek, smell his late day, tired smell.

And the covers would tuck beneath my chin, just so, cool sheet folded so the scratchy wool never touched my skin. He always remembered to prop the extra pillow for turning, against the plastered walls. Gone already, some part of me heard his "Night Snigglefritz." Feel his dry kiss on my hair, and one last barely felt drift of his long hands across my hair.

And when the monsters attacked in the night, my father came. He came bigger than anything, fiercer still. He heard the scream before it left my mouth, I swear. And he taught me more important things, like how to make the Bahbo go. My first room, with Jacky, was haunted by a giant creature, sometimes rabbit, sometimes unknown creature, I called the Bahbo. After four nights running, my dad said, "Let me teach you secrets of chasing monsters, Jetty. They are cowards. All they want is to THINK that they can scare you,  you know."

I would grab the sides of his pajama top and bury my head in his chest mumbling something profound like, " I AM scared, Daddy."

He made me sit up and said, "Now. We're going to practice. Say, BOO. Go a-WAY."

"Boogoaway."

"Jetty, I've heard you yell at Jacky better than that. Okay. BAHBO. BOO. Go a-WAY."

And we practiced until I passed muster. The next night, I woke again and Daddy wasn't there. IT WAS, though. Leaning over Jacky's bed. I SCREAMED, "BOO! Bahbo! GO AWAY!" It turned and walked toward ME, but I did it. I shook my three-year-old finger at it. I was mad. "GO AWAY!"

And it did.

And Daddy came to let me know he was proud of me. I buried my head in his top anyway.

It was the in-between years that were a bit rough. He was gone. He was busy running like all hell from OLD. I understand that. I think I understood it then, and it wasn't so much I minded the fact that he was cheating on mom. We ALL knew that, somehow. It was the leaving that hurt.  He left me to the sickness. The torture. The madness. He left his little Jetty to slay dragons that I never seemed to see in time.

James, Sr. was human. Go figure.

But when I was graduated from college, he came back to me.  He gave me What Color Is Your Parachute, first edition. He told me that I should never, EVER seriously pursue a traditional line of work. "You'll try, my Jetty. You'll think you should because your mother wants it. And you'll think you are supposed to fit. It's okay. It will eat you up and spit you out, but you'll learn. Don't worry about change. Enjoy change. If you learn nothing else, Snigglefritz, get these two things. Change can be a wonderful thing, and that the comment 'life isn't fair' is wholly irrelevant to anything that matters. FAIR has nothing to do with life. And security is an illusion that we all will try to make for ourselves. You were not made to fit any mold I've seen, honey."  He kissed me and got me a job when I was floundering, at the university where he worked.

We commuted together. I saw that he promoted every woman and person of color he could, before anyone said he should. He would say, "Why not give the underdog the shot? Usually they will work harder and do a more creative job anyway." He was beloved and we would have the most wonderful, far-reaching, leaping conversations with other faculty at lunch.  He opened my eyes to the idea that education should be part of our whole lives, and he was so proud when, after two semesters of Spanish, I was offered an upper class independent study.

I was one of those daughters who got to move into friendship with her father, all the while I knew his failings. I watched my mother sink as he rose, worshiped by women around him. Mommy dimmed. But I shone too, so I did not defend her. Perhaps I was too young. I was not yet twenty-five. On my own with my sister. Free, wild, working, on fire intellectually and physically.

Silver hair, long hands, and the voice that rumbled across the room, though it was seldom loud. I could write of the flashes of temper, the difference in how he loved me better than the rest. I'll get there. Not tonight, though. Tonight I remember when I visited him in the hospital, the night before exploratory surgery. I sat by his bed and held those long, smooth hands and he looked up at me. I was married. He already knew my marriage was in trouble. He already knew that the light had gone from his Jetty's eyes.

But we looked at one another and he said, simply, "You know, don't you."

I said, "Yes, Daddy. I know. But I guess you need the surgery to let everyone else know?"

He nodded. "You'll be around?"

"Always, Daddy."

And the next morning, I drove to a nearby Lake. Late August morning, and I drove there, to be by the lake at dawn, when I knew they were getting him into surgery.

Canada Geese © 1986

Late that summer at dawn,

I sat shivering on the still warm hood of my car.

Clear-eyed sky above mists

Blanketed geese sleeping, still, on the beach.

I heard your cry.

Then geese and fog rose together.

They fled, calling, one cacophony of joy.

Crying, I called after "Please!

Take me with you--" but they didn't hear me.

Silly geese.

Later, holding your withered, gentle hand,

Your death-stamped eyes said more than your words

As I stood by your too-sterile bed.

I realized in horror, the geese had made a mistake.

They took you instead.

You know I've always said

that's the trouble with geese, Daddy;

they just never listen.

My father was opened at 7:30 a.m. that day, and closed up at 8:05.  I don't think most children of my generation are given the opportunity to escort their fathers with full disclosure to their final departure.  He had six months to make as much right as he could; he did well. He wasted no time with dancing around difficult truths, and he bluntly admitted to his conceit, his need to feel younger than his years, how it hurt his marriage and his relationships with every child except me. Somehow or other, he thought that I had been oblivious to his lies. I let him know that I had always known the truth, but that I'd loved him. But he was increasingly worried long after he could no longer eat. After his feet had become too bony to stand, even to pivot to the bedside commode.

I had been the one to insist we wrap the mattress before it was necessary, learn the bedroll to change his sheets without disturbing him unnecessarily, and shift his position on schedule, although the bedsores appeared despite our efforts. I bought the swabs for his mouth, made the crushed ice, found the nurses. My mother sat helpless and hopeless in her chair.

"I'm glad you are here," she said, "He needs a wife. I can't be one." She couldn't. She was too far gone. And I did the dance with them, daughter, head of household, living by day in my parents' dissolving world; returning in the afternoon to a dissolving world of my own, but trying to hold on. I do not regret being there. And it is too many years ago to even feel anger toward my absent siblings as anything more than the return of a horsefly. I shoo it away.

There was far more grace to hold onto. The House of Extremes had as much Love and Light as it did sickness and darkness.

****

The day he died, I was on the bed next to him, reading something to him. His bony hand covered mine and he said, "I should have listened to the words in the shower, when I bellowed them."

His favorite wake up song was, "Ah, sweet mystery of life at last I've found thee."

"I was so damned busy with the sound of my own voice. I should have listened more, honey. For it's love and love alone the world is after. Why didn't I listen?"

I grabbed his hand and looked in the darkening eyes. "You DID, Daddy. Most days you did. You lived them more often than most, Daddy. It's all done now."

"Really?"

I remember his hanging onto my face, hoping for something. As if I could absolve him somehow of sins I simply sensed rather than knew. But I let him keep my gaze and simply said, "We know you love us, Daddy. It's okay. You can go now."

And he did.