It’s Fathers Day again. Another timely reminder that you’ve been in the ground 25 years and I’m still here. Not only that, I get to sit and listen to everyone talking about their fathers – what they’re going to be doing with them, what present they got them. Not that I’m resentful, mind you. It’s just sometimes very hard to take when I see the rest of the world getting to enjoy the company of their fathers and here I am stuck with this imaginary conversation. I guess in 53 years if you haven’t learned that life isn’t fair (something you said many times) then you are destined to be unhappy and discontented. So I suppose I’ll have to make do with this little literary phantasm.
Would that it weren’t so.
So anyway…here I am. What do you think? Yeah, put on a few pounds. Come to think of it, I’m starting to look a lot like you when you were this age. I suppose that’s the destiny of all sons. I see fathers and their older sons together today and the resemblance is there for sure. Is it nature’s way of reminding us where we came from? If you could see your seven sons lined up in a row, most of us would remind you of yourself in some way. I hope that would give you some satisfaction.
As for the rest… Well? I’m waiting. Cat got your tongue? Okay, let me start.
I’ll admit I’ve been a bit of a disappointment. Whatever it is you wanted for me in life (outside of the ubiquitous “be happy”) never quite materialized. I had my chances. But things got kind of…complicated along the way. Moreso than the others, the skein of my life has run pretty much against the grain. Wherever success or happiness lurked, I always seemed to find a way to pass them by. A career lost, a bad marriage, and the “Irish sickness” – 25 years can pass pretty quickly when there are large parts you don’t remember.
But things are better now as you can see. Amazing what a good woman can do for you, eh? And you should know. You had the best. We like to deny it but women are right when they say we’re all like little boys. There’s a part of us that wants to be cared for, that needs the nurturing love that only a woman can give. Oh, we make a big deal of resisting it – especially these days when we worry such thoughts are considered “incorrect.” But then you reach a certain age and you just don’t give a damn what others say. You know what you can give her and what she can give you and you base your relationship on the beauty of the symbiotic nature of love; a mystical beholdeness to each other that goes beyond the physical and enters the realm of the poets – a spiritual linking of minds and hearts that is truly the only valuable you own.
You know all of this, of course. I’m not telling you anything you didn’t experience yourself. But you were lucky enough to find it early in your life. I guess better late than never for me.
I wonder what you would think of my new career – if you can call writing a career. You always thought that writing was a calling, almost like the priesthood. It’s as fulfilling as anything I’ve ever done and too much fun to be called work. Sometimes, I get a chuckle imagining you reading some of the stuff I write. As an FDR liberal, I can just see your head shaking at some of my more conservative diatribes. No matter. You would have critiqued my stuff not for the political content but rather the stylistic aspects of a particular piece and cogency of my arguments. I bet you would have kept me on my toes.
But of course, despite your classically liberal politics, I have you to thank for my conservative ideological bent. All those children and I was the only one who ended up on the right side of the fence. And you had me pegged as a righty almost before I myself realized it when you suggested I read Russell Kirk’s The Conservative Mind shortly after I graduated from college. You knew exactly what would happen, didn’t you? Kirk’s references to Edmund Burke and other classical thinkers sent me off on an intellectual quest to find myself. I discovered that I agreed with the ideas espoused by conservative giants like Hayek, Eliot, Strauss, and Kristol. But you knew that. And you also knew that the love of learning and books that you instilled in all of us would carry me to my own “undiscovered country” of new ideas and different politics.
I bet that gave you a secret thrill, though. The idea that one of your brood would break with your politics validated your ideas on how to raise children; give them the freedom to discover the world on their own, guiding them where necessary but never dictating what they should think. Your library had books from every conceivable ideological point of view. From Karl Marx to Nietzsche, to Bishop Sheen. Each of us arrived at our politics in our own way, taking our own journeys of self exploration. And we were never lacking for encouragement or advice from you.
It’s amazing how much I think of you even though you’ve been gone these many years. I have Sir George Solti conducting the Chicago Symphony in Mahler’s 1st on one of my Rhapsody playlists and every time it comes on, it brings back a flood of memories of attending the Symphony with you and mother – after spending the afternoon in South Bend watching a Notre Dame football game. I can smell the leaves burning, the memory of those fall days are so powerful.
There are other reminders too – much too private and personal to put in this article. But ultimately, it comes down to this; you’ve never left me. If there is one thing I could say to comfort you wherever you are it is that despite the fact you have been gone almost half my life, your presence still fills my mind. The memories are important. But beyond memory, beyond the fading images on crumpled photographs, beyond the bleary, misty visage I see when I close my eyes, there is you. In my heart and soul. Until I draw my last breath on this earth.
And that, my dear daddy, is a comfort to me.
4:16 pm
Rick,
I can identify with your comments and sentiment. We have many similar characteristics.
Happy Father’s Day!
6:02 pm
Very personal and interesting entry. I don’t think I have the guts to get that personal on the internet with a bunch of strangers
If your dad was an ‘FDR liberal’ he would probably be indicted as a warmonger and murderer of starving children by todays progressive liberal standard. Even ‘compassionate conservatives’ (Republican liberals) would reel in horror at an FDR style of leadership.
6:58 pm
Great piece, Rick – it made my day and it will make my day tomorrow with my Dad even more special, so thank you for writing it.
sidenote: as it says on page 282 of the Big Book, “I could not expect to keep what I had gained unless I gave it away.”
: )
7:10 pm
Rick
Your ruminations of your father on this day proves only one thing.
Your normal.
Of course that will come to a shock for some readers.
8:09 am
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A Conversation With My Dead Father:...
Father’s Day is tough on those whose dads are no longer with them. Rick Moran decides to have a chat with his anyway. “Ultimately, it comes down to this; you’ve never left me. If there is one thing I could…...
7:58 am
Very good! More so to me as I can relate to almost all the points made. A good father leaves a lasting impact on one’s life! It is no wonder to me how so many “fatherless” kids grow up bad.
Being a good father is hard. Having a good father is often not fun. But kids without fathers very often harm the community. It does not take a village it takes a father!
11:09 am
Mine passed only six years ago. Like you though, I am still seeking his approval: “Did you see what I just did? Isn’t it just the way you taught me? Does it make you proud of me? I am teaching your grandchildren the exact same thing!” And I don’t even believe in heaven. Isn’t that crazy?
I dream of passed love ones as though they are still alive and that brings me mild suprise – “Grandma, I thought you died?”, but I accept the absurd idea almost immediately. “Oh, OK. You’re alive now”
Last year I dreampt such a dream about my father for the first time. The only thing I remember about it now were how damn-awfull good his hugs felt. Those hugs that I crave so much now are the same hugs that I used to try and escape as a child.
12:44 pm
I, too, lost my Dad about six years ago and it still hurts. Without my father I felt less safe, as if the family lion, the protector was gone. Even though I had a husband and children of my own, he was my protector.
I was the son he never had, sort of, (he was blessed with three daughters, every man should be so lucky), we adored him, the way he looked, the way he moved and he knew it.
But I was like a son, I guess, because I pretended I wasn’t afraid of him. In fact a few months before he died, somewhat suddenly, we were talking and he asked, “Weren’t you afraid of me when you were growing up?” Chin jutting out, I said, “No,” as not to give him the satisfaction.
Liar. He could be scary. Hear that Dad, I was scared of you. Missing you, always.
2:32 pm
I lost my Dad 10 years ago. Up until a year or so ago whenever something good happened in my life my very first thought was a reflex – ‘call Dad’. In a sense I lost him twice.
11:59 pm
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[...] Right Wing Nut House, “A Conversation With My Dead Father†[...]
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[...] A Conversation With My Dead Father Right Wing Nut House [...]
10:42 pm
My father passed away suddenly back in 1994. I was 18 and at work (waiting tables) on a sunday when it happened. I had been at odds with my dad for several weeks and had even been rude to him, refusing a hug the last time I saw him. I can’t even been to describe the pain I felt when I got the call and came home to see him being carried out by emergency workers. The pain and guilt was nearly unbearable for me. I was 18 and had 2 younger brothers and a sister. I will always remember going into the viewing room a few hrs before other guests/family and seeing him. I pulled a chair up to his casket, put my hand on his and wept.I had never been around a dead person before and was afraid but my guilt ran over me like a truck. I placed my hand on his and apologized. It didn’t make me feel better. That was 13 yrs ago. I think of him every day but function just fine, but every now and then the feeling hits me as if he died yesterday. My wife of three years is prego with our first child. If it’s a boy I will name him after my father. There is much more I would like to say but I’m sure these posts have limits on space.