Yesterday was Fathers Day.My Dad died when I was in my 20's. I never met him until I was 16, even though he lived 8 houses down from where my Mom and I lived. I seen pictures of what Dad looked like in his day. Grey and hazy pictures of a stocky man in a sport jacket, standing by a railing on a boat. He looked like a boxer or a gangster.
Mom and Dad split up when I was only a baby. Mom took me and my older brother and moved out of the family home in the country. Mom rented a 2 bedroom apt. in the city and I lived there until I was 19, my older brother moving out when I was 4. Dad, apparently, went insane after Mom left and went to what is called "Unit 9", ie the mental ward. He spent a year there and, according to what my brothers and sisters say, when he was let out, was a completly different man. Paranoid and ansty, depending on prescription medicines to keep his thinks straight. Eventually, he took to the bottle. I guess it cost less then the drugs. He stopped taking care of the family home in the country, leaving its upkeep to my oldest brother, who lives beside the house to this day. Dad moved into the city with another woman who took care of him. When I met him at 16, he had shrunk a foot from his hazy picture and the strong, square boxers jaw had been replaced with a limp, given-in look of age.
I remember borrowing his old '85 Granada shortly after meeting him. Fresh new drivers license in my pocket, girlfriend waiting by the door for a drive. For borrowing it, he asked me to give him a drive. To the liquor store. Kings Ransom Scotch Whiskey. This is how I remember my Father. Crouched down in the passengers side of that Granada, asking me to "park aways' from the door so's no one sees him". Well no... I remember him in one other way. I remember tears falling from my eyes as the bagpipes played at his funeral. Looking up at my Uncle with "Why am I crying?" questioning eyes.
I am a Father and I have a little girl.
And I'll be damned if I leave her with the same memories My Dad left me.
Ciao
