Still Sans Shelter

But I have found an errant wifi signal here in the Cockroach Chateau. Whoever you are out there, godbless you for not adding a password! If I knew which house you were coming from I would bake you cookies.

So, here I am catching up with all my bloglines and seeing who did what to whom, and soothing the violent TY who just got back from the construction site and found water pouring down our driveway and rolling down the street because the pool guys finished the refinishing project yesterday and filled the pool with our hose but seem to forgot to go back and turn it off. It's been running all night. So much for my green footprint today, now the size of Mr. Sasquatch. Guess I can't justify a shower for the next few decades.

But, as I was saying, I was trolling around and came across an article by Mata H on her blog. She was talking about fathers and her own difficult time with hers. So it caught my eye and I read on: She was referring to a radio show she was listening to while driving and the interview was with three successful African Americans who had written a book about their absent fathers, their 'fatherlessness'. In fact their fathers also contributed to the book, but go read the post because it is so informative.

One of the authors said he was able to deal with this 'fatherlessness' when “I finally realized that he had just lost his way.”

This line struck Mata H so hard she had to pull off the road. And it struck me also because it explains away all my own questions about my own dad. He lost his way.

My childhood was happy as I remember it, but if I am honest I really remember only my mother- she was the parent, my dad came home late every night and exhausted from his job. He wasn't particularly happy with what he was doing and carried his dissatisfaction outwardly, but spent much time in his shop in the basement carving and whittling and putting together simple furniture for everyone else we knew. Which is of course the model I followed when the kids got to me- I headed for the studio. Dropped out. Found something else to concentrate my energies on. So anyway, my 'model' aside, he wasn't around even when he was around! He gave me the same 'fatherlessness' even though he was living right there in the house. And my mother protected him by allowing his isolation and lack of family involvement.

After I moved away from home my parents would visit Boston and we would have a good time but my dad-memories are of him sitting with the newspaper while my mom and I chatted on. After I married he became quite hostile to TY, and it isn't until now I see that he was angry at his aggressiveness, youth, and (perceived) early successes. And the anger came plowing out with the lubrication of just one drink- though that 'one drink' was usually long past by noon. Every dinner we had together, even after our kids arrived, was ended in anger as he goaded and bragged and attacked either Ty or me.

“I finally realized that he had just lost his way.”

How I wish that I would have realized this long ago. S.