I have been fortunate enough to have great men in my life. Not great in the slightly better word for good. But GREAT. Shining. Educators. Men who made me who I am. I don't say that lightly, in my world of taking it lightly.
My parents had great fathers. I'm not going to sugarcoat it and talk about fantastic childhoods filled with white picket fences. A Leave It To Beaver existence is not what makes a great father. But a great father teaches and guides, and they certainly had that.
I lost both grandfathers at a young age, both to accidental deaths. I wonder had they lived, would their life lessons have been greater? Would I see them differently, knowing them through an adults eyes, instead of a child's? Both were hard workers. Both had wickedly twisted senses of humor. I have far more memories of my mom's dad, as he died when I was a teenager, while my paternal grandfather passed while I was still a young child. But what does it say that in that short memory of my dad's dad, I still remember him clearly trying to scare us kids by randomly popping out his false teeth at us? Some would call it therapy inducing pranks, but I called it fun. What child doesn't enjoy being both terrified and fascinated at the same time?
My mom's dad was cool, in the teenage sense of retro cool. Did everyone have a grandpa that listened to Pink Floyd? I liked to think not, and it was him I thought of as I sat six months pregnant in the grass at a Pink Floyd concert in my 20's. I remember playing with my mom's younger siblings Barbie's at their house, and begging grandpa to do the voices, and if you were lucky, he'd pick up one of those Barbie's and have entire conversations with you in a falsetto ridiculous voice. When my mom was just starting out with her store, it was grandpa who went to work with her every day. Being a pre-teen, I didn't understand at the time all the words of wisdom he was sharing with her on running a business, words she has since shared with me. But I did understand his silliness, even at a place of business. Pulling on women's wigs, setting up the child sized doll in the hall of the store, making it "talk" to the customers in one of his voices. He probably scarred some children (and adults) for life, but in my brain, it was my grandpa being silly. It might seem mundane, or inconsequential, but as an adult, knowing the very hard life he had led, knowing his experiences that would break many people, it is still a lesson we all can benefit from. The lesson of laughter. Of silliness. Of hard work and sacrifice, but finding silliness in the most every day of things.
My own father is not a man of many words. He, like my grandfathers, was a hard worker, working a union job that provided, but did not inspire. He did what he had to do to provide for his family, and it showed in the times he would come home covered in filth from the foundry. He also has a wicked sense of humor. I still to this day cannot look at a transom window without remembering the terror of our childhood home.
You see, our bathroom door had one of these windows. And picture innocently sitting on the toilet as a child, daydreaming, and seeing that hallway light go out through that window. We knew what that meant. It meant HE was in the hallway closet. Lurking. Waiting. No amount of preparing yourself would save you from the terror of dad jumping out of that closet. No amount of crying "moooooooooom" would save your whiny little ass. Don't ask me what mom was doing as you plaintively cried for her to just turn on the light and get dad out of the closet. One time, I witnessed the fury of mom when dad attempted this little trick on her, so I think it's possible she saw this as a way of getting it out of his system on us, so he would never do that to her again. All I know, is even by the fifth or sixth time, it still was enough to scare the piss out of us. Probably why he did it when we were in the bathroom. Empty bladder...kid can't piss themselves in fright.
The man of little words (except BOO!), has never made me doubt that I'm daddy's little girl, however. I knew it when I would walk in the house at 12:05AM, and he'd be sitting there looking at the clock, handing out the groundings when he didn't believe my lameass excuse that my watch was set differently from his. He showed his superhero cape and sword when he tracked me down at a much too old for me boyfriend's house, after I "ran away". The sword being his fists, the cape being the threats against the scumbag's life. He taught me responsibility when we spent a day picking up rotten apples in the neighbor's yard after throwing them at said neighbor's house the night before. He taught me respect when he made mom "the paddle", because dealing with three hedonistic feral little shits while he was at work was more than she could handle some days. (Don't worry, she broke the paddle slamming it against the wall instead of across our asses, though we deserved many ass whoppings.) He was the father, firmly insisting you get your ass out of bed for Sunday morning breakfast, and I'm convinced to this day that he knew exactly when that would hurt the most from a night out with friends involving whatever cheap liquor you could get your hands on.
He is the man who helped us rebuild this house, after we tore it apart down to nearly nothing, and then wondered what the hell we had just gotten ourselves into. He is the man I saw go to mush when he arrived at the hospital and held our daughter, his first grandchild, for the first time. He has been the man who quietly stood by while things in our lives may have been falling apart, silently letting us know by his unwavering presence that we had to learn adult lessons, but we also always had a dad to let us know we are unconditionally loved. He taught me to fish, to mow, to wire a house, he is the one I would call in the middle of the night because the basement was flooding again and he was the one telling me it might not be a good idea to play around with plugging in the sump pump while standing in a foot of water. He taught me to work hard, and did I say WORK HARD? But be silly...feel free to punch that Velveteen Rabbit across the room at Christmas time. Let your kids watch Jurassic Park as toddlers because a well rounded, frightening childhood is a GOOD childhood. He is the man who gave me my sense of humor (as twisted as it might seem sometimes), the man who taught me respect, the man who passed on his sense of speaking plainly and to the point.
He's the father my husband did not have. He's accepted him, treated him like a son, and given my husband the same unconditional love he has given me. My husband has a father, but marrying me, he gained a DAD.
My father, like his father, and my mother's father, is a man of few words. But there are not enough words in existence to describe him. And that's ok. His actions have always spoken volumes. So when he called me a few weeks ago to tell me he was in the "big city", and asked if I wanted him to find me the ever-so-difficult key lime juice to top all key lime juices, of course I said yes. And of course, he gets THE PIE on this Father's Day. Because he's my daddy. And I'm his little girl.
Happy Father's Day Poppa.
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