Stillness

AWW: 12/15/10
non-subject ~ the darkness

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I read other people's stories. I hear other's stories. Their perceptions. Their experiences. Their judgments. Their emotions. Often their stories involve their families of origin. Their brothers, sisters, moms, dads.

When it comes to stories of people's relationships with their parents, mostly with their moms, I draw a blank. When I think of my relationship with my mom, I feel a void, a nothingness.

That void isn't as prevalent when thinking of my dad.

Dad showed anger, at times quite blatantly. His face turning red. The veins in his neck stretched tight, bulging and almost exposed. The bass-tone verbiage that would bellow forth like it was straight from his heart or belly. I especially recall his passionate "god damn it to hell" phrase. One, which when I think about, is a pretty good phrase if God is going to damn something.

Dad showed compassion and grief. I saw him cry, even before his wreck. When I was in elementary and junior high schools, we would sometimes watch Lassie or Little House on the Prairie. Dad would cry. It wasn't boisterous like when he was angry. A tear or few trickled down his cheek. He tried to hold back, but couldn't. He'd wipe them with the back of his hand. I'd be teary-eyed too.

Dad would dance. And I'd dance with him, in the living room. I was young, elementary school age. A Patsy Cline or Johnny Cash vinyl would be spinning on the record player. Dad would start twisting and swaying his hips. He enjoyed shaking a leg.

When I was 24, about 1-1/2 months before his accident in 1983, he flew out to Kansas to visit me when I was in-residence in the Way Corps at The Way College of Emporia. The Way Corps, and I guess the College Division as well, had a parent's weekend. Dad stayed on campus in the Uncle Harry Dorm. One of my Corps brothers gave up his lower bunk for Dad. Dad and I went to a bar in town and we danced. That weekend was the last time I saw him able to use his body fully.

Little did I know how providential that visit was. The next time I saw Dad some two months later, he lay flat in a hospital bed, his body stretched straight out with a stainless steel halo holding his head perfectly still. Still with steel.

Providential visits. Like the last time I ever saw Dad, in February, 1996, when I was 36 years old. I drove Mom, myself, and my two young children the seven hours from Hickory, NC, to Richmond, VA, to visit Dad. He'd had a rough year with some colon surgeries, a couple short times in a nursing home, and now he was recuperating at McGuire Veteran's Administration Hospital. He was still weak, but was making progress. At the time, McGuire had the largest Spinal Cord Injury Unit in the US. Or so I'd been told.

Mom was an emotional wreck that trip. She knew, I knew, my brother and sister knew, that Dad wouldn't be able to come back home. We didn't have the means to care for him there anymore. That weekend visit to McGuire, she couldn't bring herself to tell Dad he wouldn't be able to come home. I didn't tell him either. He died the following Friday. Some say he did go home.

Dad was cremated.

Mom had tried to commit suicide in 1995. I can't recall exactly where Dad was at that time; I guess either in a nursing home or the hospital. I found Mom on her kitchen floor after the overdose. But of course that incident was never discussed.

Dad was passionate. I have feelings when I think of Dad.

When I think of Mom, I have a void. It's so odd to me. I don't feel anything. I find it difficult to relate to people's experiences when they share their relationships regarding their parents, especially their relationships with their mothers.

I never saw Mom cry, at least that I can remember. Never. The only times I remember her showing anger were when I got my tattoo when I was 18 and then in her later years after Dad's wreck. When I got my tat, her response was more of fear than anger. After Dad's wreck, her anger was directed at her children and Dad. That continued after Dad's death.

Mom laughed though, and seemed to try to see the bright side of things. Well, actually, I think, she ignored the darker side.

She was Compton Encyclopedia's number one salesperson in the United States for about five years in a row in the late 60s and early 70s.