MY FATHER IS AMAZING!!!! - A Father's Day love letter that's a little late but actually right on time.....

So here's some real-deal truth for you, so please take the time, okay? A few years ago I was having some SERIOUS relationship trouble. The kind of trouble that can really fuck with your head badly, and so Alison and I went to see a therapist. The therapist's M.O. was to listen to us complain about what was going wrong, but NEVER gave any indication that he was figuring out what to do to make it right. He always finished sessions by posing the question "Well, what do YOU think you should do about it?", regarding whatever had been talked about that day. With a couple years of experience doing it, and having dealt with all sorts of reprobates and assholes myself, I knew in my heart that not only was this guy not doing either of us any good, but he would NEVER offer one piece of advice that was concrete and final. It was very frustrating, but this poor mensch DID give me one thing, and it is the thing that's set this all off. We were talking about how our patterns mirrored our parents, and I was (and still am) convinced that we were headed down the exact same path to a "T". The therapist paused and then said these words. "Well, you're going home to see your parents, right Paul? Here's something you can try. Get some time alone with your father, just the two of you, with no interruptions in the way as best you can. Then ask him this question. Dad, what kind of man did you raise me to be? What kind of man, husband, father did you want me to be?" Now THIS was a really heavy proposition to me, but I knew it had to be done. I have had many assumptions about my father, and I desperately needed some answers, because I didn't like where my life was headed.

Fast forward to Erie, Pa. and one night with my Dad, sitting in the driveway way up off Peach Street looking at stars in the clear sky and nervously asking him that question. His reply was, "Well, I guess I tried to raise you to be a good guy. I kind of dropped out and let your Mother raise you during high school." This was NOT what I wanted to hear from him, basically because it all came crashing down to me (not on me) about my most formative times. My Mother is a good woman, and I love her as much as I can, but her way of raising me as a high-schooler was skewed at best. Fitting the norm was the way to go, and all the things I dearly loved, punk rock, playing music, safety pins in my ears, screwing around with my hair. To my Mom these were just plain wrong behaviors, all of which would lead me down "THE WRONG PATHS"!! (Of course...) I IMMEDIATELY began to wonder what my life would have been like had my Dad been more involved, and a major resentment began to grow towards him, and by proxy, my Mom. THEN, some time later, I discovered a communication from my Mom that basically disparaged me in the worst way, talking about what kind of person I REALLY was, and how I couldn't complete anything, be trusted, or be worth anything. THIS after going back to college at 35 and completing City College, undergrad, grad school AND becoming a licensed social worker in four years? I also got a communication from my Dad that ended with him saying "Please prove us wrong Paul." I couldn't believe what I'd just read, and that combined with my Mom's comments made me decide to cut off ALL communication with my parents. That lasted almost two years. I only recently began speaking to them again after being informed that my Mom, a two-time breast cancer survivor, has cancer AGAIN. Only this time it's tumors in her liver and pancreas, and it's advanced.

As I've begun to communicate with my parents again, I have been civil but pointedly distant, as I am still not sure how far into my life I can allow them to be. To this moment I can't get over the fact that my parents would side against me, their own SON, but I do know that the actions I took were my own decision, and in the end I owe them an apology for those actions. I hope to go see them to make those amends soon.

HERE'S THE BIG THING THOUGH. Remember that question Mr. Milquetoast posed to me, what kind of father, husband, man did you raise me to be? I finally figured it out. You see, I started to become aware of certain things that were happening with my son and I that I could only see as coming from dear old Dad. "Daddy, my radio car won't run right, can you fix it?" So we opened that sucker up to see what was going on, and it was a loose connection from a wire to the car antenna. "Daddy, can we go fishing for real sometime?" Off we go to get Willzzzo's rod and reel, Daddy gets a license and the next thing you know we're catching bluegill after sunfish after crappie at the Skokie Lagoons. "Daddy, can we get some cookies?" "Well kiddo, let's MAKE the cookies, okay?" There go Daddy and Will to get supplies and get Will cooking utensils that would fit a five year old hand. "Daddy, let's go down to the beach and look for "good sticks", okay?" Good sticks being the kind that can be used for swords, lightsabers, etc. Off we go to the beach, where we stop to look at/examine/pick up every.single.stick.on.the.beach. EVERY SINGLE ONE of these actions came from experiences with my Dad....

It was amazing to really come to terms with all the great things my Dad and I had done together, and the knowledge/life lessons I took from them. Him taking me fishing, and showing me as best he could how to do it. He taught me how to cook basic meals, which instilled my life-long love of cooking food. I love to see what's in the cupboard and the fridge and suddenly get a spark to see what becomes of it all. My Dad took me to Erie Blades hockey games, and he and I would wait until the teams would leave, (sometimes an hour later) then I would go into the empty locker rooms and get all the left-over tape and broken sticks. My Dad would take all those sticks and fix them up, and they would usually last me two or three weeks. I would occasionally score with new sticks that were left because they had enough use to not be needed by the players anymore.
My Dad is very quiet, and although you may think he's not paying attention, or that he's shy, he's taking EVERYTHING in. He's also probably the most well-rounded, educated person I know. When I went back to City College it was all good, but when I got to Loyola  I was having BIG trouble with a couple of classes. My Dad, who is also a Professor, gave me the greatest advice about school and learning that I've ever had. He said, "Son, take it to your teachers. Their job is to teach YOU how to do whatever skill they're laying out. At the end, it's their JOB, and if they can't show you how to comprehend the material they're not doing what they're getting paid for." Things changed after that. I've been patient with my son as best I can when he gets frustrated with schoolwork, and have become involved in his school, with his mother and I being room-parents, which was highly rewarding on many levels. My Dad videotaped me kicking footballs ALL THE TIME, as I was pretty amazing at it during high school. I enjoyed watching Will play soccer this summer so much that after coaching a game that his regular coach had to miss I decided to volunteer to coach in the program this Fall, "Soccer Dad" indeed!

At the end of all of this, I've realized that my Father did the best he could with what he had, and that as a Father, I now realize that there doesn't NEED to be any big moment with a strike of lightning or ANY kind of deal behind it. I realize that it's the things that go unsaid, the things that are provided as a matter-of-fact to our kids (or even nieces and nephews) that they absorb and hold on to. I don't know if my Dad will read this before I see him in person, but now we've REALLY got some things to talk about, man to man! I love him and always will, and I take great pride in knowing that quite a few of the great pieces of my life with Willzzzo so far have been informed by the lessons my Dad has given me. A LOT of things are about to go down in my life in the next month or so, but none could happen until I wrote this down. Thanks for taking the time to read all this, okay?
Be Well, Paul