Being from a single parent family was never a claim I made. However, my knowledge from a very young age was that my father had died at 57 from a medical emergency that is immediately addressed today and known as a “strangulated hernia”. Many were the times I would ask Mom why Dad died and always it was this same answer.
Dad and me.
Writing now about Father’s Day still stirs loss even with his longstanding absence. Yes, there are several memories I treasure. Children appear to handle trauma well, but do we really? All of us come to know suffering, loss and separation at the beginning of life and learn that nothing in life is permanent but hope to the contrary, that it was. We know many separations along our journey. Yet, there is a more current view that tells us separation is an illusion and that “we are all “One”. I find the idea of “oneness” comforting and resonate more with belief that dad and I are now connected, both in body and spirit.
Integrating the experience of death into my 4 yr. old self, did not always come easy as I keenly remember Dad was my idol, my love, my hero. I hated saying he was dead because a following conversation then seemed flat, there was nothing more to say. As an example, I was walking home from school one day with another 6 yr. old girl, when she soon asked me, “What does your father do?” I said I did not have a father, that he was dead. Immediately I did not like the sound and feeling of those words, so I said, “no that’s not right. That man who died was not my father. My oldest brother is really my father, but we don’t want the neighbours to know”. I knew I was lying and feared my mother might hear this tale I had told, so quickly added, “we don’t want the neighbors to know”, meaning do not repeat this.
Imagination is a creative way to bring joy, let the spirit fly, fantasize. It is also a way to buffer painful life issues for children, adults, all of us, to create a more acceptable story. While thoughts/memories even on this Father’s Day are thin for me, they are more treasured with added years.
Most precious for me are the memories shared about dad, with my mother, when I was very young. In those moments when no one else was around, she would take from her bottom bedroom dresser drawer, a big white box. It contained a white shirt with lots of tiny pleats. Then she would say, “this was your dad’s wedding shirt”. Pausing a while, then she would tenderly lift something else, colourful long, and narrow, and say “these were your dad’s ties”. Those occasional experiences with her helped fill a gap which words lacked.
How can we each make this year Father’s Day a special time to remember Dad, whether he be living or deceased? What about remembering those who have served us as substitutes, (especially mothers) for an absent father. To these substitutes in my life I owe deep gratitude, especially my Mom and oldest brother Francis, who now enjoys eternal rest with my absent, yet ever-present father.
Sister Patricia St Louis, csj