You Gotta Have Heart
My dad wasn't perfect. Ho ho ho, far from it. But I loved him....and always will.
My two older sisters have this memory of him that I've always been kinda envious of. They remember being little and having the chicken pox, or a bad flu bug, I'm not sure which. All I know is my dad gave them alcohol rub downs which cooled their skin and lowered their fevers and it's a memory they share.
Me, my earliest recollection of him is of us all walking along Jones Beach, and my dad was smoking a cigarette and I reached up to take his hand only to accidentally knock the head off his ciggie, and it burned me. I can still smell the burning flesh smell that all of us hate so much, mixed with the tang of seaweed.
It took years for me to get to know him. He was this big, tall man with a booming laugh, who took time out to show my sisters and I all the constellations in the sky, and name them for us, one by one. He loved the ocean, and he loved his sail boat, and he felt his best out there on the water, with his cut-off jeans shorts and a t-shirt on. He also worked hard, on Wall Street, and he looked great in a Brooks Brothers suit, too.
There was one week in the summer, when I was a kid, when I was supposed to stay with him for an entire week, instead of just the usual every-other-weekend visit with my sisters. I was to have him to myself for a whole week.
But....I wasn't close with him yet. I was much tighter with my mother and not used to being separated from her yet. And about half way through my week with him, I cried and told my dad I wanted to go home. He was heartbroken, but he understood, and he drove me home to my mom with a solemn and sad concentration behind the wheel.
It wasn't until I moved to Florida in my early teens that he and I actually grew closer. We started writing each other. I'd type him a two page letter, and he'd respond with hand-written legal-size yellow papers, two, sometimes six, at a time. His handwriting was so much better than mine.
I once asked him, "What does a Stock Analyst do?". And he replied with a three-page hand-written legal letter telling me how he started his day reading the Wall Street Journal, inside out. Then following commodities, then stock prices. He explained to me what commodities were, and how they were important to the overall big picture of following trends. He explained what each + and - and fraction meant, in the stock charts. He then explained that he'd read numerous other papers (local to Long Island as well as NYC) and take in what he learned and then use that to determine what might happen next.
In return, I opened my heart to him and told him about my latest crush in high school, shared the titles and lyrics of my favorite new songs, described my bedroom and how I had it all set up, and told him how things were progressing with my mom and new step-dad. I even sent him my latest short stories/cartoons that I'd been writing. He loved them. He told me I had a sense of humor well beyond my years, and that I should keep it up, because I had a vivid imagination.
His career on Wall Street eventually got to him. Sometimes, I think he saw the whole facade for what it was, and I think he wanted more of a utopia, as do I. He went overseas for a time, still working as a stock analyst, and he loved it there, but his retirement seemed welcome to him.
Instead of coming home to NY, he ended up retiring in a very small town in Virginia, where, instead of wearing Brooks Brothers, he donned a baseball cap and jeans. He kept up with politics (oy, Fox News, of course), but walked to the nearby diner every day to sit with the locals and get to know them. He became a fixture there. Knew all the waitresses, ordered off the menu without having to read it, talked to all his neighbors and compared notes on the changes in the weather and the neighborhood....
He worked with the local charities there, and he befriended people with names like Tater-Bug. My Brooks Brothers dad, hanging out with the locals and not only listening to them, but becoming one with them. Imparting his knowledge, sharing his strong beliefs about government and finance, but also knowing who had a newborn baby and whose house had been violated by a flood.
I write tonight about my dad because, well....some in my family saw him as a black sheep, and some in my family felt that he'd made a lot of mistakes in his life.
But I saw him as someone I came to love simply for himself, and not just because he was my dad. I loved the man, not the father figure that he represented. I know he made errors....I've made many myself. I know he wasn't perfect, and neither am I.
I also know that in his later years, he changed. He evolved. He came to love and appreciate people not based on their worth or their income, but on what wisdom and what personal stories they could share with him. And he always shared back.
Hell, he watched Fox News to the end, but.....I think he saw the hearts and minds of people who watch both Fox News and MSNBC. I like to think so, anyway.
He was no Ted Kennedy, but he evolved and changed, and got to see real people and understand their struggles. And he loved them.
That was a start.
My dad was no Ted Kennedy, but he had a heart.
It's my hope that all of us find our hearts, and use them as we should.
