I’ve told every story about the Goldings I can remember; however I haven’t written much about my own father, who was of course a Golding.
There’s one sad aspect to my relationship with both of my parents: decades passed while I wasn’t close to either. At the end of their lives, soon before each exited this earth, a period of time came when I was privileged to be close to each. A gift from God who apparently decided that we had all been through enough.
My father was over six feet tall and was slender. When I was a small child I was in awe of him; he was so much taller than I was, he had trouble speaking to me, he wasn’t the kind of father who sat down on the floor and played Monopoly. Dinner times were very stressful; my father had strict rules about behavior at the table. I rarely told him anything. It was just too difficult to relate to him–(psychobabble jargon but I can’t think of any other way to say it.) He scared me and my sister and he was the one who disciplined us.
Of course I thought he didn’t like me. I thought that maybe it was his own father’s fault that made him so removed. I also considered that if I had been a boy it would have been different. Yes, it was painful but, as I keep stating, I had a whole matriarchal clan from which I received constant attention and love.
Something changed when I became a teenager. These things are so hard to define. It was as if a fog lifted that had been clouding my father from view; the interesting part is that he experienced the same thing where I was concerned.
When I was 14 I was a happy, fairly popular young girl. I went to dances and parties and I began to go on dates. When I went to a dance, lots of times a boy who had a drivers license would want to drive me home. But my father did not allow me to go around in cars driven by 16 year old boys. So one of my parents would come and take me home from wherever I was.
I was infuriated by this. I felt as if my civil rights were being violated. It was no more than a few miles–this wasn’t New York City!! Why did my father have to be such a drag??
For the first time in my life I challenged him. I could not back down, oh no. We had quite a few scenes over this. Now this part is interesting because I could only see it after many decades had passed. (My father died when he was only 44.) He was enjoying this. He had this amused look in his eyes as we sparred over the question of riding-in-cars-with-16 year old-boys. Again, when I picture this I can still see his eyes dancing with amusement but not just that–I could see that he really loved me, thought I was very pretty, and he admired my courage for standing up to the great Sherwin A. Golding!!
From my end–and this was WAY down into my subconscious and only emerged when I became a “senior citizen;” I was a little in love with him also. When I would say that all the other girls were riding with 16 year old boys, he would say this: Tell all your friends that you have a rotten old man. I can take it. Also, when I would demand why he was enforcing this dumb rule he would say: I know what a 16 year old boy thinks about when he’s alone in a car with 14 year old girl and you don’t.
Again–subconsciously–part of me was thinking…”What a man he is. He’s handsome, tall, successful.” So these times were small bouts of love but a complex form of love. I’m grateful that I realized these things, even after so much time had passed.
lgmwriting 