before 'the split' i recall only a few things about my dad. he worked at the airlines...i recall thinking he flew planes and later learned he was in maintenance there. either way i felt he liked planes. at his funeral i read a poem by John Gillespie Magee:
"High Flight"
" Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air....
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace.
Where never lark, or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I have trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
- Put out my hand, and touched the face of God."
when i was about 7 my parents split up ... Daddy just went to work one night and never came home. Mom got a telegram saying he was leaving and marrying her best friend. Pretty sad.
seeing how sad our mom was ought to have been enough but we, my lil bro and i, were told that when he left it was US too, not just the marriage but the family. you can imagine how that hurt a 7 and a 4 yr old? i took it very seriously and personally and carried a heavy guilt bag around for years.
even though he tried to see us, would come to the door and bring presents and wanted to hug us, we both stood back and reluctantly accepted the gifts w/o a real thank you and definitely no invitation to come in.
with Mom standing back with arms folded, mouth pursed and eyes glaring it was obvious we had to choose. if we had showed any desire to visit with our dad, it was very clear that, to her, it meant we were betraying her love.
i truly believe that my mama never got the concept of loving - that she really thought it would take love away from her if we also loved our dad.
At 7 i had to choose between parents. stay with the mother who was working hard to provide food and shelter for us, or go with the father who offered shelter and food as well. i loved them both. how could i pick one? i get really hot on this issue when i see it happening today. it is wrong. it set me up for a lifetime of working to understand that i do not have to choose. if i have 2 friends who do not get along with each other that is their issue, NOT mine. Hard to reform my thought processes to remove myself from the pull to pick a side...i have my side and that is it.
when i was 19 i began to think that i owed it to myself to see my dad and establish some sort of relationship. i guess one can take rejection only so long and he had finally quit trying to see us after a few years.
i decided that there were things beyond my understanding and that i did and do not need to know what the details of the break up were. BECAUSE IT WAS NOT ME THAT HE DIVORCED. it was not i who was abandoned.
so i found his number in a dallas phone book at the library...i had heard he moved to dallas a while back. and i called him.
difficult call to make. i know now i was very brave. for all i knew, the awful things my mom had said about him were true.
but i DID call and he was thrilled. i gave him my address in FW and he came over that night. he could not wait to reconnect.
and i found myself able to forgive him and let him into my heart. we kept in touch for the rest of his life. he seemed so happy to have his "Linda with the dancing eyes", as he called me when i was little, back in his life.
there are a few things i have done in my life that make me smile when i recall them...forgiving my dad and myself, and, finally, my mom are some of them.
there are things we are not meant to understand and some occasions that call for courage and leaps of faith. Please don't let fear hold you back.
i am at peace in the knowing that i reached out and my reward was love.
Happy Father's Day, Daddy.
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