The Walk Of Understanding

My father was a difficult person to know. As a child,I saw him as someone who laid down the law, a disciplinarian to be feared. Spankings were quite common, (guess I was not an Angel) he had a quick temper, and was not afraid to show it. With 5 kids in our family,there was always someone misbehaving and the house echoed quite often with my mother's warning,"wait until your father hears about this!"


Dad worked the second shift, leaving the house at 1 pm or so and returning around 1 am. He was driven to and walked home from the train, and usually stopped at a bar to have a couple of beers. Beer was big in his life, on weekends he would knock back a case, or sometime he would go to a bar on a Saturday afternoon, come home for dinner, then return for a nightcap. Sunday afternoons might find him there as well, watching a sporting event. You might say he had a drinking problem, maybe he didn't. All I know is that bills got paid, we were fed and clothed, and Christmas found lots of presents under the tree. Nobody said anything, even my mom was quiet, at least in front of us kids. If anything was discussed, it was said behind closed doors.


With those hours and his habits, I hardly saw my dad; he was sleeping when I left for school or went out to play and I was sleeping when he arrived home after work. Often I found myself envious of my friends whose fathers spent time with them. Do not misunderstand me, at times my dad and I spent some time with each other, he would sometimes take me to the bar (you could do that back then) and buy me a soda to sip while he watched the ball game or whatever, but we didn't have much conversation beyond the "Did you see that play?"or "The Cubs are gonna lose, huh?" sort of talk.


Once in a while, my dad would do something surprising. When I was 10 or so I got interested in coin collecting, and one summer day after he woke up he showed me 4 or 5 old coins that he had borrowed from a co-worker. After my drooling stopped I was told I could keep one of them; I chose the oldest and most unusual one, an 1853 3 cent piece. I loved when things like that occurred, made me feel like I was wanted somehow, or that he was proud of me. Beyond the uncommon gestures such as that he really didn't encourage me or the rest of my brothers and sisters much, he just worked and drank most of the time and I came to accept that. I really had no choice, but I felt somehow cheated out of a dad; he certainly was not the stereotypical "Father Knows Best" type, that's for sure. As for my mom, I am sure she was not all that happy with him, but like I said earlier, we had a home, food, and clothes, and sometimes even went on a family vacation. Maybe that was all life was supposed to be, I don't know.


The family vacation was just that, but with one exception; my dad never went. He stayed home and painted or fixed something which needed fixing or did whatever fathers did when they found themselves alone for a week or more. He did not drive, so his time away from work coincided with the time the rest of the family was away. I don't know if he liked being alone, perhaps it was nice not to have all us kids around, and he could relax a bit. When we returned from vacation, whatever needed to be done was done, and our lives returned to what was normal for us.


So imagine our surprise when one day dad announced that vacation was to be at his childhood home in Pennsylvania and that he was going along. Honestly, I did not know what to think, but the trip was to be made by train from Chicago, and that was exciting! Even more excitement occurred when, due to flooding in the Northeast, we were to fly instead! To that point none of us had ever flown, and we impatiently counted the days until departure.

As it turned out, this time my mom and older sister did not come along, the reason was probably financial, but we did know that my paternal grandmother and my mom did not get along well. So on the day we were to leave, my mom took us to the airport kissed us all goodbye, and returned home to do whatever moms do with their oldest daughter when the rest of the family is away.


Upon arrival in Pennsylvania we were picked up and taken to my dad's boyhood home. My grandmother gave us kids a cool reception, she really never cared for us much, there were no Christmas or Birthday cards from her ever. My uncle Bill, however, was a real nice guy and made us feel quite at home with his sense of humor and general kindness. As for my dad, he seemed quite happy to be back home, actually smiling sometimes. It felt kind of weird to be away from my mom though, after all she was the one who was there most of the time for us.


I began to notice a change in my dad, he seemed really relaxed, quite a difference from his usual uptight self. Things we did that, at home would cause him to yell at us were dismissed with a good natured laugh or a wave of his hand. Maybe he was putting on an act for his family, I don't know; but it sure was nice. At night my brothers and I would talk about this change, wondering what had happened. Whatever it was, we hoped it would last. No drinking, no yelling, no spanking....wow!


As the days went on we did the usual stuff, visiting other relatives, going swimming, going to amusement parks, and just generally goofing off. After a long, hot day at one park I became ill and vomited in the car. Back home that would of earned all my dad's fury, but here it was met with a "well,that happens" attitude. I think we all pinched ourselves to see if we were dreaming. Dad even bragged about my coin collection to my uncle one day, and I was promptly taken upstairs and given a few pieces by my uncle.


One day near the end of the trip my dad asked me to take a walk with him. As the two of us walked down a hill away from the house he began to open up, telling me about his life here and showing me where things had happened when he was a kid. We passed his grade school where he pointed out where he had gotten into fights, over there was a ball field where he hit a game winning Home Run. I saw where he would go sledding, a steep hill that ended at a guard rail, past that rail was a 300 foot drop. Here was where he first kissed a girl, and over there he smoked a cigarette when he was 12. I was almost 12 myself, and I could not believe he had done some of the same things as me, and even more. I told him about my escapades, and began to see him as a real person, someone more than a stranger who fed and clothed and yelled at me. He had a life, and in his own way he was revealing it to me. 


Dad told me about his father, a mine worker who died of Black Lung disease when my dad was 15. I found out he had lost an older brother as well, to a form of heart disease. As he talked I could see the pain and emotion on his face, he lost his composure once, but only once. Men were not supposed to cry, they had to be strong you know; but in that moment he was a human being in need of consolation. It felt awkward seeing him that way, I really didn't know what to say or do. So I just said I was sorry, and he hugged me. He told me life can be cruel sometimes, so enjoy it while you can, that you cannot predict the future. Heady stuff for an 11 year old to understand perhaps, so I just nodded my head and we walked on. I wondered if he enjoyed his life, certainly he had over the past week or so. He seemed a changed man, and for the better.


Seven months after we had arrived home, on a Sunday morning my father had a massive heart attack, he did not survive. I cried of course, but not much. I was now the "Man" of the family, I needed to be strong, or so I felt. At the wake and funeral I was strangely detached, shedding not a single tear. People told me to let it all out, but nothing came out. I accepted his death and moved on with my adolescent life, fatherless.


I don't know if it was fate, maybe my dad knew something somehow, and that trip the previous summer was his farewell tour, so to speak. When I look back upon that time, I see a person who, perhaps, was ready to make a change in his life; to start a new chapter. He had opened the book to page one, and then that book was slammed shut. I may of been denied the opportunity to have spent any more time with him, but I do cherish the memories of that one day in the summer of 1972 when for a few hours we were two people; one a teacher, the other a student.


 I now have my own son, ironically my father and I were the same age when our first born sons arrived, so our lives sort of parallel each other but with a couple of exceptions. I spend as much time as I can with my son, to a fault sometimes I am more a friend than a dad. I like beer, but drink way less than my dad did, and try to live a much healthier lifestyle. My dad was 44 when he died, I am now 51 and feel great.


Having grown up and raised a boy of my own I now understand why sometimes my dad could be the way he was, life is full of pressures. Maybe that was his final gift to me, on that walk helping me to understand that we all make mistakes, we are all human. But humans have the ability to look at the past and to learn from it, to apply positive changes. So thanks dad, you have taught me well, though certainly I am not perfect. My son will see my mistakes, learn from them, and hopefully avoid making the same ones I have. I just wish my dad was around to see it happen.