A Complicated Father

Reflecting on Dad

My Dad was complicated.

Before I get into anything here, I'm not looking for condolences, don't need them, he's been gone for almost five years now, and I'm at peace with it. But today, for me, is a day of reflection and perspective, so I thought I'd share something personal.

These four pictures I’m sharing represent a life.

A young man - only child, even - in a foreign country playing an accordion for a few bucks and a warm meal hopping from island to island in Yugoslavia. He traveled and played folk songs to old fisherman and their wives with his father (my Nono), until the day they escaped by rowboat in the dead of night, because it was too dangerous to stay.

Years later, a grown man in Atlantic City circa 1979, holding the hand of yours truly, being that larger-than-life authority figure who was the breadwinner, and made time for his youngest to do some fun stuff. I wanted to spend time with him, and I was terrified of his temper.

The older man, weathered and sore from a lifetime of hard work as a carpenter and woodworking machinery engineer, enjoying his morning cup while petting a pooch. The temper was gone by these days. He was simply living and enjoying the life he built for himself.

And lastly, the elderly man being eaten alive from the inside by cancer, on his deathbed. His hand being held in return by the young son he held onto during that summer day on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.

My father was emotionally unavailable. He wasn't concerned with what I was going through in my head or my heart. There was never conversation about how I was doing, other than me getting in trouble for being terrible at math.

We had legendary fights over math homework. Math was my worst subject by far, and my father was an old-school carpenter that could figure out the most complex mathematical problems in his head. He could point to an object and guess it's length to the 16th of an inch. It was a superpower.

His son was stupid, at least that's something I'd often hear.

There were times in high school where I threw homework papers across the room in frustration. My unwise blow-ups typically led to my hair being yanked, once hard enough that I partially pissed myself. My nose would get shoved into books like a dog’s face being shoved into a shit-filled shoe. There’d be a plethora of curse words and sobs while I tried scribbling the right answers with his imposing presence looming over me.

He used to breathe down my neck like a bull ready to charge at any moment.

It led to me packing up and moving out at 20 - a truly stupid decision, chasing a girl that ended up being my first narcissistic encounter. I left my Dad a letter that day, too terrified to confront him face-to-face, and drove away with my Mom sobbing and screaming in the driveway.

Years later, maturity happened. Bridges were repaired, and I was back home - wounded, in an insane amount of debt, shaken, insecure, and never really the same. I spent two years trying on my own, being emotionally steamrolled by a disrespectful cheater, and at times sleeping in abandoned buildings or living out of my car.

When it came time for me to settle, and have my own kids, I did my best, but the same cycle ended up repeating itself. I had a hard time with them emotionally. *I* was the unavailable one. I couldn't relax. Everything was stress-inducing. Everything was a melt-down. There was no peace and I was always on edge and could never explain why.

The realizations came a little later, while I could still salvage connection with my own kids. That realization was the fact that the cycle of emotional unavailability had to end with me, or my three sons would continue spreading it. The realization that I had to accept the fact that as a child, my physical needs were met, but I was alone.

I had to be a better Father.

I tell my kids that I love them.

I tell them that I am proud of them.

I let them know that I am always here, no matter what.

I tell them that I may disagree with a decision they're making, and I'll let them know why, but I'll always be there to pick them up if they fall down.

I make a clumsy effort to do the things my Dad was unable to do because he was in a cycle as well. Just like me, he was once that little boy who lived with parents that were emotionally unavailable - only he was so fully closed off that he was never able to realize the cycle and change it.

I love my Father for all of the things he taught me, showed me, and let me experience with him. We used to play Nintendo Golf every night before I went to bed. When I wrecked my first car, I spent weeks in the garage with him, swapping out an engine and getting a new ride ready to go.

For all that I did, tried, and accomplished, he never said, "I love you."

Not once.

He never said, "I'm proud of you," either.

But he gave me a roof, a bed, food, and taught me value in hard work. My sense of comic absurdity came in large part from my father. He'd fart in church and laugh about it. He'd play harmless pranks on my Mom. We'd watch Bugs Bunny and The Three Stooges together every Sunday and laugh out loud at it all.

He wasn't perfect, but he was Dad.

And it's those lessons I learned that allowed me to be the youngest son, holding his hand as God called him home. We listened to two weeks of that death rattle, 24/7, as he was in a morphine-induced sleep until one moment where he shot up, opened his eyes, looked at me, and heard me say, "I love you," in Italian.

That's when his eyes closed, his body relaxed back into the bed, and he was gone.

Ti amo, Pop.

Thank you for everything, good and bad.

I miss you.