The Topsy Turvy Family  


That's me in red on the left. My mother's head is cut off, which seems an appropriate metaphor. My dad is upside down, my drool-faced sister is the baby and my brother is the other kid.

This month is Father's Day and perhaps that explains why I've been thinking about my dad so much lately. Or perhaps watching Nancy Reagan and her daughter hold hands as they stood by the flag-draped coffin of Ronald Reagan has sparked my melancholy. I hadn't planned to watch the Reagan coverage--I am so easily and so quickly bored when the media goes on and on about any topic--but there it was, the pall-bearers and the coffin and the moment when Nancy Reagan buried her head on her daughter's shoulder and shook with sobs.

And I cried, too.

I miss my dad. The dad in this picture was the Real Dad I loved so much. He was silly and crazy and goofy. He laughed with such gusto that actors in community theater loved to have him sit in the audience because his laughter was infectious. I used to save up little tidbits of my day to make him laugh at the dinner table. I would tell him my favorite joke: "I sure am glad I wasn't born in France." (Why?) "Because I don't speak French!" I called him "Daddio" and he called me "Mel."

He was a complicated man, though, prone to bouts of depression and withdrawal. He had been accepted to the University of Washington's technical writing program just before he died. He'd spent so much of his adult life trying to figure out what he wanted to be when he grew up. And then he ran out of time.

When I went to college, he sent a hand-written letter expressing his regret, his sadness, his loss, his longing. I had no idea that he loved me as much as he did. He hated that he could not remember ever holding me on his lap and reading me a story. He told me that he cried a river of tears on the night I left. He thought he was a failure as a father.

He would have been a fantastic grandfather, partly to make up for his shortcomings as a father, but mostly because he'd grown up and his heart had finally expanded to fill his whole being. But he died before he had any grandchildren.

My parents were divorced a dozen years before my dad's death. When he was still in the hospital, dying, he was barely conscious. We spent our afternoons sitting with him, though, and on one particular evening, my mother and a few others were there. Now, my father was an artistic soul and a great Pictionary player. When he and I teamed up, we were unstoppable. We liked to play with my mother as our opponent because she was such a horrible drawer. My dad and I found great humor in her inability to draw and tremendous satisfaction in our teamwork.

So, this particular evening, my dad was propped up in a hospital chair (I have no idea why--hospital protocol?) and his hands were splayed on each armrest. His eyes were barely opened. My mother said, "I bet I could beat you at Pictionary now!" and he slowly shook his head side-to-side. The image still makes me laugh. His body failed him, but his wit remained to the very end.

He was the gravity that we depended on. And I still can't believe he left us to orbit on our own, even after almost fifteen years. I miss him.