Lessons In Losing A Father.

My Dad used to help me write all my papers. It didn’t matter what age I was or what grade I was in, each paper was important in his eyes. Each paper brought my dad the ability to be the teacher he always was; each paper was a lesson for me to become a better writer under his tutelage.

I was always a procrastinator when it came to writing. It never really mattered what it was about, I’d wait until the last day or two to write it. This even happened with a 20 page independent research paper in college. No matter what, I couldn’t get inspiration to write until there was intense pressure. This was difficult when it came to getting help from my dad.

I can’t count the times he would be up with me helping me the night before a paper was due. He’d often type what I had written shorthand for me, and help me with grammatical errors and shortening of my verbose wording. There’d be times I’d be writing, and he’d go to bed and ask me to wake him up when I needed help with the editing - sometimes I’d be waking him up at 2 and 3 in the morning. Sometimes I’d have a panic attack, and he’d help me calm down and write a couple sentences to get me flowing, and I’d flow into my own words with those initial footholds.

In those dark hours before dawn, Dad would sit in our basement in his robe, the coffee-machine percolating upstairs, going over my paper and telling me what I needed to change and what I didn’t need to fix. Sometime’s I’d object to his editing, but he usually had a logical point to the editing, and it helped me see my writing from a different perspective.

When the paper was complete, my dad would often let me go to bed and sleep in, and he’d call me in as sick until the paper was due, or he’d let me come home early sick after turning it in so I could get some sleep. I got to get rest, but he’d get dressed in his dapper suit, put on his Polo cologne after his shower, and head to work. He’d work until 6pm, and then come home on not much more than two or three hours of sleep. He’d go to bed at the regular time, and get up and do it again.

I never really saw all of this as love or sacrifice until he was gone. I never understood how tired he must have been until I hit thirty and realized how vital sleep is the older you get. I always thought he was editing my stuff because it sucked and he was disappointed in me. I’d feel that way until I got the A-grade, and then I realized I wasn’t so bad after all, and that he was just helping me get better.

I haven’t been able to endure a college writing course because of Dad’s help. All other writing-specific teaching has been empty and boring for me; it doesn’t really challenge me like Dad did. Each time I try to take one, I find the holes in the teachers opinions and tend to drift offline. Since Dad died, the classes remind me of him, and I get overly emotional with the grief I’ve never seemed to heal. I’ve dropped out of three lower division writing courses, and intentionally received an F-grade due to an utter lack of drive in completing the one course I stuck through. I tested out on these courses with my SAT/ACT scores, but somehow colleges always find a way to squeeze the students of more bucks when it comes to core requisites.

A big part of why I am writing this blog is because of Dad. He was an exceptional poet and a great writer, and he taught me all I have really held onto in writing. He was into the wordage of what he wrote, and he’d often write with words that I had never heard of. One of Dad’s most cherished possessions was his Oxford English Dictionary. Their station in our house was in the restroom or on the table where my dad would have his coffee. I’d catch him going through it weekly, reading aloud the words to memorize their meanings. He loved the English language.

Several days after he had died, he visited me. I was crying in the bathroom, unable to get out of a bath that had diminished from hot to tepid. I had to be back in college in two days to make my Boulder rent, and I didn’t really have it in me to be a good student then. I felt his soul enter the bathroom, and heard him say, Jenny, don’t make the same mistake I did; do what you love to do, pursue your dreams, and you will be all right. You will make it if you follow your heart. You will be okay. I am so proud of you. I love you so much, I will always be here.

I can’t really explain the logic or science behind that experience, but those words have guided every choice I’ve made since then. I don’t really like institutions or science without conscience, so I stopped studying at CU and didn’t finish my degree. I don’t really enjoy a life without creation, so I started chasing the dreams I wanted to chase, like blacksmithing and drawing and writing. I’ve been living off the inheritance I got from my father’s death, and it wasn’t ever as big as some folks thought, but it was enough to let me find out what I wanted out of this life and try to myself again. Most people don’t know what they want at thirty, but I do. Most people don’t take the time to listen to their heart, but I chose to. I had to because of the hard lesson of death. I had to listen because of my dad’s sacrifice. He died after living a life to fill the needs of others, and he lost himself along the way.

So, what lesson can be gained from reading about the experience of one who has lost a parent? Remember to not sacrifice yourself for the sake of your security or your families security. Remember to grieve when you need to and not to bury it - you deserve the time you give yourself to grieve. Remember that some actions parent’s do seem like disrespect, but they are really done with loving intent, and parents haven’t really been parent’s before. Remember to choose whatever it is that fulfills your higher purposes and aims, because at the end of life, if you don’t, you will regret it with every fiber of your being.

I love you, Dad.

Wild-child Part 3

On the day Wild-child was to begin the second semester of Grade One, her mom and sister walked with her through the park to the school. Mommy kissed Wild-child goodbye, and Wild-child lined up with the other kids on the playground to get ready to go to the new class. Wild-child saw Geoff and waved heartily at him, but Geoff just stared at Wild-child as if she had a lobster growing out of her skull. He ignored her throughout first recess, and at lunch Wild-child approached Geoff and asked him what was the trouble.

Wild-child: Hey. How come you won’t talk to me?
Geoff: My dad told me I couldn’t talk to you anymore. We can’t be friends.
Wild-child: Why not? Did your dad say why we couldn’t play together?
Geoff: Yeah, he said I shouldn’t be playing with little girls who don’t act like girls.
Wild-child: What do you mean? I’m a girl, I’m only a tomboy.
Geoff: Dad says girls like you are freaks because you pretend to be boys and you need to learn your place. Go away, I don’t want to talk to you anymore. We can’t be friends anymore, I’ll get in trouble.

And with that, Wild-child’s friendship with Geoff promptly ended.

That afternoon after school, Wild-child told her mom what Geoff had said to her. Her mom consoled her and told her to just keep being herself, and not to worry, she’ll make friends. People will see, you’re a special girl, you’ll make friends, Mommy said. But that wasn’t Wild-child experience each day. Every lunch, Wild-child would wind up eating by herself, or with the little handicap girl she would sometimes play with. The girls wouldn’t sit with her, because she was weird and didn’t like to wear dresses. Wild-child’s mom started forcing Wild-child to wear dresses, to conform and hopefully make friends, but Wild-child secretly stowed an extra pair of jeans in her locker at school, and every time her mom sent her to Glen Eagle Elementary in a dress, Wild-child would change into her spare jeans and t-shirt when Mom wasn’t around.

Things were lonely for a time, and Wild-child focused her attention on her studies rather than on her social standing. That was how it went, until a group of boys started calling her names. At first, the names were like whispers on wind, uttered under the breath of children as though they hadn’t said a thing. Their sideways glances gave them away, and their blatant absolution only revealed their guilt. The origin of the name-calling was Geoff, who was quite popular as he often had many M.U.S.C.L.E. men to trade with. Wild-child suspected he had stolen some of hers during lunch, but she couldn’t say or do much about it. One day during a spelling Bee, Wild-child was in the back of the class and while the teacher was talking, Wild-child let go of a large, smelly, and rather large fart. She couldn’t do anything about it, she was nervous about the Bee. The teacher stopped talking, and the entire class turned to look at Wild-child, whose cheeks had turned a bright red, the colour of her Pterodactyl T-shirt.

Teacher (with everyone watching, and some grimacing at the foul stench emanating from the back of the classroom): Wild-child, what do you say when you do that?
Wild-child: ...Pardon me. I had cabbage last night that did not agree with me.

Some of the boys chortled. None of the girls laughed. The Grade-One teacher just stared at Wild-child for a long while, until the class was underneath a cloud of awkward silence and lingering kidfart that was so dense you could cut it with a knife.

The teacher never really liked Wild-child much. Wild-child suspected the lady didn’t like Americans, but she couldn’t be sure. Seeing as the point had been made, and Wild-child was the focal point of enforcing social norms, things were rough on the playground for a while. Mocking whispers became blatant curses, and Wild-child started going home for lunch each day.

Wild-child Part 2

The trip to Canada was a hot and cramped one, and Wild-child had many nightmares in the back of that shiny new Yuppie Camry. She remembers her parents listening to Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours cassette and stopping at a u-pump-it and getting Wild-child a Dr. Pepper. The Dr. Pepper was the coldest thing Wild-child had ever had, colder than any popsicle had ever been, because she was so hot in the back of that car. It made the nightmare less scary. It made the trip more bearable.

When the Middle Class American family left Colorado for Toronto, the half-human husband was told by his bosses that he would be in charge of a particular branch in Canada. When he arrived they had given the position to his competitor but had decided to keep him on as his competitor’s assistant. This greatly wounded the husband, who had to spend two weeks waiting for the moving truck to get to Toronto. His family’s new home was a hotel room until then. That is when his new baby got really sick. She was so ill she turned bright red all over her body, and her fever was potentially fatal. Tilly was rushed to the emergency and a doctor in Canada saved her life. She was sick and no one knew why or with what, but she almost died. It scared Wild-child and she didn’t resent her little pink sister so much for a time, because she thought the little one was a weakling and sickly, and took pity on her.
Wild-child always had a capacity to feel pity for the broken things in the world. She pitied the retarded kids who had no friends on the playground, and so she played with them when no one else would talk to or touch them. One time in Colorado, Wild-child met a little girl on a bicycle. She seemed like she’d be a nice friend, and Wild-child gave her the bag of M&Ms she had been eating in her yard. The little girl on the bicycle took the candy and rode away, and was never seen again. People saw Wild-child’s ability to feel pain, and some respected her for it, and others took from her because her humility was also gullible naivete. People like taking from the gullible - it makes them feel powerful. It makes them forget their bleeding wounds and broken souls. Wild-child allowed them to forget for a time.

It took her many years to find her niche, and she never really did. She was always the kind of person that people didn’t know how or what to do with. She didn’t make friends easily, and boys would tease her for dressing like them. She was a tomboy, not a boy. She was still a girl, she just didn’t want to dress like an idiot. She wanted to play war just like all the other kids, but because she was born a girl for some reason she could not play war as simply as those who were born boys could.

Wild-child liked to draw and create pictures with waterpaint. One day her dad bought her a model airplane, and she and Dad spent the entire weekend putting the plastic together with model glue, and when it was finished Wild-child and her dad played with it out on the lawn in the back yard. Wild-child loved her dad very much, and loved her dad most of all in Canada. He seemed to feel more relieved there than he did in America, in spite of his work-wound. As an adult, Wild-child came to find that it was probably because he was the man of his own castle, and had a whole family that was his own to come home to. It was like a cabin away from the pain of the work, and the family was the strength that kept him going. It wasn’t always so simple, but it seemed like that was why her dad was happiest in Canada. It reminded him of his childhood in Ottawa and in England, and he didn’t feel so silly for knowing so much about the world there. People in Canada didn’t treat him like a know-it-all, because everyone around him was of similar education.

Wild-child made a friend named Geoff the summer she moved to the big house on the corner. Geoff was a tall boy with sandy blonde hair, and he liked to wear camouflage a lot. Geoff had both a Nintendo and an Atari, but Wild-child’s family only had an Atari, so Wild-child would go over to his house to play Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. Geoff liked wrestling and playing war, and he and Wild-child got into a lot of scrapes running around the neighbourhood. Geoff also taught her how to collect M.U.S.C.L.E. men, which were quite the rage in Oakville. Wild-child thought Geoff was to be her best friend, the way Camilla had been. Geoff sometimes ate at her house, but Wild-child never got invited to do the same at Geoff’s place. One evening, Wild-child was on her way home from Geoff’s. It was dusk, and she had her seagreen Schwinn BMX bicycle with the training wheels on it. Wild-child was going a little too fast down the hill, and hit some gravel. The BMX wheels began to skid, and even with the training wheels, Wild-child began to slide with her bicycle. She was wearing shorts, and her thigh met the gravelly pavement for several feet before she came to a stop. Her leg looked like Mommy’s meatloaf, which turned Wild-child off of meatloaf forever. She had almost slid underneath the bed of a large truck, but had stopped in time before hitting the back of the pickup.

The scab that formed on Wild-child’s thigh stuck to her sweatpant PJs. It wouldn’t heal for a while because Canada was so much more humid than Colorado, and Mommy wasn’t able to keep Wild-child from picking at it. Wild-child secretly liked to pull at the scab in bed, because it was unusual. It reminded her of the impact with pavement, and it felt odd to have pink skin turn into a yellow wound and then become hard and crisp like a potato crisp. It was weird, and it was gross. Wild-child liked anything gross. She even liked the gross slime that grew underneath the bridge by her house. Her mom had told her not to go down there, but Wild-child did all the time when Mommy wasn’t looking. There was art down there, and Wild-child was intrigued by the four letter words that no one was supposed to say, but everyone did.

Wild-child Part 1

Once upon a time there was a middle class family in the 1980s in Colorado. The family had just moved into their first home, a tiny but efficient three bedroom house in the booming community of Lafayette, Colorado. The husband was a military-brat turned civil-rights-activist turned draft-dodger turned English-Lit-major turned poet turned husband turned half-person turned General-Electric-desk-jockey. This husband was an up and coming Yuppie, who sacrificed dreams and idealism for cold hard cash and a crib with a baby and two mouths other than his own to feed. Who can say that was a good sacrifice? I can, as I’m a byproduct of his sacrificial death of dream.

The wife of this up-and-coming Yuppie family was halfbreed “Black Dutch” turned poor-white-trash turned abused-child turned orphaned-rebellious-hippy turned Anglophile turned psychology-major turned sociology-major turned wife turned half-person turned housewife turned mother turned homemaker. This wife was a woman who was taught to believe in the White Knight to rescue her and she sacrificed her self, her dreams and her idealism for a lovely roof over her head and a crib with a baby and two mouths other than her own to feed. Who can say that was a good sacrifice? I can, as I am the biproduct of her sacrificial death of dream.

This middle class family believed all was well in Reaganworld, where so long as you kept on giving up for money, all the worries would be relieved by the glossy gifts of material greed. It was the way of their generation, it was the way of their culture.

The little girl they bore was unlike other little girls. She did not like dresses or frills, and preferred He-Man to She-ra. She liked Mickey Mouse and wanted to grow a beard like her daddy did each morning. She enjoyed playing and living out of house and in the yard, playing in the grass and eating Razzles and mud pies on stormy summer days.

One day the wife told the little girl she was going to have a little sister. The girl was excited and watched her mother’s stomach grow and thought that perhaps the baby got in there when her daddy would kiss mommy on the lips. Perhaps the little girl had lived in daddy and had crawled into mommy’s stomach through his mouth into hers. It didn’t matter, she was going to have a sister, and she had no say in the matter. It was already done.

Little Wild-child remembered her parents leaving for France with her daddy’s company. She remembers being forced to live at Meme and Grandpa’s. Meme had a fascination with suppositories, and grandpa enforced a strict dress-for-Sunday-school code, very much like an MP would enforce curfew. As much as Wild-child liked her grandparents, they smelled different than her parents and they were not as nice. She hated her parents for going to France without her, but she had no say in the matter.

Wild-child resented the little pink thing in the car seat next to her on the way home from the hospital. She resented it because it took mommy’s attention away. It demanded much more than Wild-child ever did, and it cried a lot. It made everyone frustrated, but still Wild-child had to like it, it was her sister, after all.

One day when Wild-child was playing with her finger paints, her sister came over and bit her knee so fiercely that she broke skin and Wild-child’s knee bled. She could not hit the teething infant but Mommy fixed the wound with a bandaid. She could not fix the wound of resentment in the little tomboy’s heart, the malice that tainted Wild-child’s relationship with Matilda since that first cut on her knee.

Wild-child remembered saying goodbye to the house in Lafayette. She remembered the big moving van and the new Camry that would take them to Toronto. None of it made much sense until she said goodbye to her best friend Camilla. Camilla was like Wild-child, she didn’t like dresses or frills and preferred G.I. Joes and Legos to Barbie, but Camilla couldn’t watch the Thundercats or the Smurfs because they were filled with witchcraft and sorcery and Camilla’s parents were missionaries. When Wild-child said goodbye to Camilla, she knew she was really leaving forever.