I am
reminded of my father at different moments in my life; I can be reading a good
book or watching a movie, and suddenly I’ll think of him and want to talk to
him about the book or the movie I know he would have liked. I remember our long
walks on hot summer evenings when I was a teenager, just him and me, ambling
slowly along Broadway in Tarrytown, down as far as the Sunnyside estate and
then back. We always had something to talk about. Or I’ll remember him toward
the end of his life, when illness had weakened him and he had become a fragile
man. Those are the ‘memories that bless and burn’, as my mother used to say. I
am reminded of him and of all of the elderly fathers in his generation who are
still alive, today on Father’s Day. Some of them (like my friend Jean’s father
whom I look forward to seeing each year on my annual trip to NY) are sick and
struggling to get well; I send my best wishes for a good recovery from across
the ocean. They are always in my thoughts and prayers, but especially today.
They are a part of a generation that is fast fading away; many of them served
valiantly in WWII and that experience shaped the rest of their lives. They
might have married and had families, but they also shared camaraderie with
their fellow soldiers, the depth of which none of us will ever really
understand. Most of them were sparse with details concerning their wartime experiences.
My father was no exception; we knew he was stationed in England and that he helped
load bombs onto planes (the reason for his chronic back problems), but that was
the extent of it. There are some photos to that effect. What he mostly imparted
to us was his feelings about England--how much he loved the country and the
British people. That’s what he talked about, and that’s what stayed with him
many years after the war. He kept in touch with an older married couple he met
there, and they would write him long letters telling him about what was going
on in their little neck of England. Sometimes they sent pictures of their son
and his friends. I remember the letters he received; they were always on blue
airmail paper (still available at Amazon, of course: http://www.amazon.com/Kikkerland-Mailblok-Airmail-Paper-Block/dp/B004VNAOT4). I remember that paper, having
written a number of airmail letters, and I can remember the excitement I felt
about receiving an airmail letter in the post.
The thing
that strikes me about my father now, when I think of him, was how willing he
was to share his life with us. He was not a selfish man when it came to his
feelings and thoughts. That is what I remember about him today, on Father’s
Day, how his willingness to share his feelings and thoughts helped to create a family
life that I remember to this day. Because the latter is not possible if its
participants shut down, close themselves off, make themselves remote to those
around them. It is not possible to be fully private and to be an active family
member. I think my father found a good balance; he was a reserved man in many
ways, but he was also a social one who looked forward to gathering the family
at the dinner table in the evenings when we were growing up, to good
conversation, and to holidays when his brother and sister would come to visit. Ours
was not a perfect family; there were the requisite family dramas and squabbles
as in most families. My parents didn’t always tackle them as well as they
should have. But that’s not what I remember all these years later. What I
remember is my father coming home from work and us children rushing to greet
him at the door. Or his taking us to the Westchester County stamp fairs so that
we could get interested in stamp collecting (his hobby that eventually spurred
the rest of us to start our own collections). Or his taking us to the Sunday
afternoon classical music concerts at the Washington Irving junior high school—classical
music was another love of his. Or his willingness to discuss nearly any book
you might want to discuss with him; if he hadn’t read it, he would read it so
as to form an opinion about it. He left this world far too early, but what he
shared with his family remains with me forever. Happy Father's Day to him and to all the
fathers I know who take the chance and are willing to share their thoughts,
feelings, and pastimes with their families.
