What My Fathers Taught Me

It’s been a year since my last blog entry, a year of many life-changing events. Being my first entry for my return to the blogosphere, I didn’t want to write about Father’s Day. But maybe this is a good place to start.

In the past year I’ve lost both my fathers. My own father has been in a nursing home since last year. His dementia has progressed rapidly, so much that he only remembers me sometimes. It has affected his ability to walk as well. Two years ago he was still hiking and dancing. Now he shuffles with a walker and needs assistance to carry out the most basic daily activities like feeding himself and bathing. Occasionally he can draw recognizable figures of cats and airplanes on his sketchpad. Those moments have become fewer and far between, as my visits to him have as well. It’s not that I don’t carry a lot of guilt for it.

This past March I lost my other father. He was my ex-father-in-law but the one I called “Dad.” I was blessed to have him a part of my life for almost twenty years. I’m still trying to look at it as a blessing instead of a loss. He would not have wanted me to dwell on the loss.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the things I’ve learned from both my fathers.

From my own father what comes to mind first is to never say anything you may regret…including “I love you.” I was around sixteen when I first got that lesson. He caught me writing “Love, Marie” on a card I was planning to give to my high school sweetheart. Okay, I was sixteen, and what did I know about love then?

My father never told me he loved me. Well, there was one time, which I’ll get to later. I remember more than once during my childhood before my mother left us, my mother asking in sign language, “You don’t love me.” Sometimes she’d ask, “Do you love me?” He’d sign back, “Of course I do.” I can’t remember if he ever said the words, “I love you,” but at five years old, our perceptions can be flawed. Once when I was cleaning out my desk, I found a stack of birthday cards he had given me over the years. They were signed simply, “Daddy.” When I had my own family and my bitterness and resentment toward him had cooled off, I’d end our visits with a hug and “I love you, Daddy.” He always responded with a pat on my shoulder and, “Yup. Okay.” A few months ago, at the end of one of my last visits at the nursing home he did respond, “I love you, too.”

What I learned from my father-in-law, “Dad,” was that love is unconditional, unwavering. It was evident in his devotion to his wife and family. At first it took me a while to learn and understand this. Sometimes at family gatherings the lot of us would get into heated discussions. We’d be shouting over each other our opinions and disagreements. An outsider might have thought we didn’t like each other, maybe even hate each other. But at the end of the day, we’d take turns hugging each other and say, “I love you.” And as I’d get into my car, I knew it.

At the reception after his memorial service, friends and family took turns sharing memories of him. There was one that has stuck with me. Dad and Mom were yelling at each other in the kitchen. She was trying to finish preparations for one of her elaborate meals. Some such argument ensued over place settings or water pitchers. Both were red in the face and their blood pressures were palpable. Mom stormed out of the kitchen. Dad yelled, “Mary! Mary!” She had thrown up her hands and kept walking without looking back. He followed her into the next room, still shouting, “Mary!” Finally, she turned and stopped. He smiled and said, “Give me a kiss.” And they made up.

So these are the things I’ve learned from both my fathers. Now it’s your turn. Think about your own father or father figures. Start your freewrite with “These are the things my father taught me…” or something along those lines. Set your timer for fifteen minutes and write without stopping or censoring. Let go…breathe…write.

I would love to hear what lessons you’ve learned. Please feel free to post them.

The Rear Window

Alfred Hitchcock’s film, “The Rear Window” was about a photographer who was stranded in his house with a broken leg. He begins to watch his neighbors’ comings and goings through his telephoto lens. Then he witnesses a murder, but no one believes him. He enlists his friends’ help—and his beautiful girlfriend played by Grace Kelly—to prove his neighbor murdered his wife.

In Sinclair Lewis’ novel, Main Street, Mrs. Dr. Kennicott is a newbie in a small closeknit town. She feels she is an outsider under scrutiny as well as the town’s current curiosity. In one scene she overhears a group of boys and their observations of her from outside her living room window. One boy imitates her mannerisms and ridicules the way she tried to straighten a painting on her living room wall. In another scene while strolling through town, she observes her neighbors watching her from behind their curtains and shrubs. But were they watching her as much as she imagined? Her paranoia might have been a product of her sensitivity to being an outsider.

Many of my characters in my novel, Living in the City, were inspired by real-life neighbors (or compilations of them). A man who drove around the neighborhood in an ice cream truck and sold carnival toys and cotton candy up and down the alley was the inspiration for my character Junior, who called himself an entrepreneur. As the novel went on, this scrungy man who at first I didn’t like became a lovable, eccentric man I enjoyed spending time with.

What’s outside your window? Who’s coming and going? Who has lived in your neighbors’ houses? What conflicts do your neighbors have with themselves, their families, or each other? What are the neighbors are saying about each other? We can approach writing about our neighbors from various angles.

First write about what is going on outside your window from an objective point of view. Report what you see without editorializing. For instance, Mrs. Adams and her chubby daughters are planting marigolds around the mailbox. Chris, the 17-year-old boy bolts through the door and hops into the back of a waiting pick up truck with four other boys. One boy tosses out a beer can. The boys whoop and holler, the truck tires squeal, and Mrs. Adams runs after them, shouting and shaking a trowel. After you’ve written a page or so, ask questions regarding the scene you just reported. What is going on between the mother and her children? What will happen next? What are their individual conflicts? Freewrite from each of their points of view. Try exaggerating one of more character traits. Try this exercise at different times of the day and from different vantage points. If you can’t answer the questions to your original reportage, tuck the piece away for later. Another variation is to string the individual scenes together to form a longer story. Also, try this from the angle of the Sinclair Lewis scenes. Write what your character thinks her neighbors think of her. Or combine the variations. The variations are as limitless as your imagination.