I. My Dear, DEAR Father
Part 1
In this blog entry we enter a realm that’s not 100% physical. If somebody told me this kind of story about a parent who had died years ago, I would have thought that person was crazy and living in a delusion. But when it happens to you, what do you do?
When I was a child my father had little to do with me. We barely spoke to one another. I had been drawn into the center of the matriarchal clan, surrounded by women who loved me. My father was tall, austere, removed. We never played games, he never took my sister and me to movies, Forbes Field, Kennywood. On school picnic day my father arrived at Kennywood straight from work in one of his grey suits, horizontal lines in his forehead. He did not like crowds–did not like all the noises and smells that made Kennywood memorable–did not like the kind of food you got there–and didn’t go on any of the rides. But again, though I do remember this, I wasn’t saddened by it. I was in the middles of all the people I loved; Maxine was there, my friends from Shady Avenue, my grandmother who always sat with her sister Lillian on the benches in the shady area.
If a disciplinary problem came up, he was the one who punished and lectured us. As I grew up, though, things started to change. He talked to me more and I could sense that he liked me and he wasn’t angry when I stood up to him. This amused him; he would get a lovely light in his eyes when I demanded my rights as a teenager. I wasn’t a child anymore and I told him that. However, we did not converse much. He never asked me what I was learning in school, how my friends were, what I was reading, nor did he make any comment about my piano playing. A quiet, very quiet individual. Of course I thought he didn’t like me very much. What child wouldn’t? But there was–once again–many people closely around me who loved me and although I had periods of sadness about this, they didn’t overwhelm me.
Part 2
I didn’t know what to feel when he died so suddenly. I would get these blank, numb feelings about this but mostly I escaped as quickly as possible. There were many family problems surrounding my almost insane desire to leave so I wouldn’t have to be in an alien world, my father not present. I felt naked and exposed so when I met Mark Hoffman, I took off, into a new world, living like a real woman who had a lover and interesting books to read and living openly with my boyfriend. What an explosion this caused. I could not hold myself back, the forces at work in me were too strong. Nobody ever understood this and most family members resented me, even hated me. But I couldn’t stop myself, I was propelled into escaping to a world of my own making. My step-father said: “Leslie is ruthless.”
Part 3
Now time speeds up, decades go by, and it’s 2008. My step-father had been dead a year, Maxine died in March of 2008. I came to Pittsburgh, wanting to see Maxine one last time but I was a day late. So, staying with my mother, I attended the funeral and gave a short speech of which I was proud. Maxine would have liked it, I think. March 30 of 2008 turned out to be pivotal in terms of my family history. I decided to stay an extra day–my employer was gracious and nice about this–to visit Harold when things quieted down. It was that night that my mother and I stayed up late, looking at the contents of a cardboard box that held old family photos.
I’ve described what happened that night to many people; it was one of the most important nights of my life, and my mother’s too. We were drinking red wine and becoming a little “intoxicated.” In this box were letters written by my father when he went to Norway for something connected with his work. He wrote twice a day; there were two letters for each day, one written in the morning and one after his day was through. I was seeing, for the first time, another father–somebody totally different from the man I had known! There really are few words that can describe this; it was like being hit on the head or lightening striking my heart and soul. And during the long period since my father’s death, my mother told me continually, over and over and over–“I loved your father more than he loved me.” What daughter wants to hear this? It was naked, full of pain. I believed her, sort of. But now I sat with my mother, reading these letters that contained love and tenderness. What to make of all this? I know there’s a Yiddish word for it–farblunget. Knocked on your head so hard that you’re in a daze.
I kept trying to tell my mother this. I kept saying “Mom. MOM. Look at these letters, look how devoted he was. Don’t you think that you may have been wrong about his not loving you as much as you loved him?” My mother had little to say, and it’s my belief that she didn’t want to hear this. For what reason, I can’t say, even now. But it was the beginning of getting to know my father, decades after he left this earth.
Obviously I can’t tell this whole saga at one sitting. Some who read it will think I’m insane. However–when my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Disease in 2010 I had this thought come “from nowhere.” “What would my father want me to do?” And the answer came: “Help take care of your mother and try to get along with your sister.” Peace descended and immediately I swung into action. Starting in 2010 I went back and forth between Bloomsburg and Pittsburgh, spending time with my mother, going for joy rides all over the city, looking at our old neighborhood, drinking red wine (again) and just hanging out together. One day, we woke up in the morning, began to talk about family history and it got to be around noon. My mother said that she was having such a good time; did we have to go anywhere? I said no, we didn’t have to go anywhere and we sat and talked all day. She kept asking me the same questions, over and over but I didn’t lose patience. I was doing what my father wanted me to do.
lgmwriting 