The Stranger Who Loved Me: An Eldest Daughter on her Dead Dad
A Poem (?) of Rambling Thoughts
Not in the traditional sense that I didn’t know him.
He was always present in my life.
We lived in the same house until adulthood urged me out.
He loved and cared for me in his own way.
He snored like a six-foot-tall duck.
He liked his eggs with spam or corned beef hash.
He was frugal to the point of nearly being a cheapskate.
His formal wear was a cerulean blue button-up, steel-toed boots
He liked sci-fi and fantasy.
He watched a lot of conspiracy docs and doomsday movies -
He wasn’t a religious person - in fact
He tried to convince my sister and I that Jesus was an alien,
and that he himself was Thor, who’d come down from Asgaard.
His argument was compelling.
I know facts about my dad.
The things he let people see.
The things he actually talked about.
Which was very rarely about himself.
He was a very intelligent person, and
He had a bad habit of shoving it in people’s faces.
“Uneducated” people frustrated him.
That was something I had to unlearn from him.
Sorry, I guess that’s not a fact.
Much of what I had learned about my father,
He never told me those kinds of things.
He never got into the nitty gritty of his mind or his heart.
Like many other dads, I’ve discovered.
Like many men have been taught to move through life.
“Men don’t think like we do.”
“Men don’t feel emotions like we do.”
I cannot count the times I’ve heard my mother say that.
She would say it in front of him too,
usually after they had some disagreement.
There are reasons she’s come to that conclusion.
Trauma. Societal conditioning. Heteronormativity.
Even before I had an understanding of these things,
I never really liked when she said it.
I couldn’t believe it to be true.
The one time I ever saw him truly blow up and scream at her,
in the middle of some unrelated argument.
He stood from the dinner table with a slam and stormed off.
She started crying like a victim, and I was angry at her.
I was scared of him at that moment, but I wanted to go after him.
I wanted to tell him sorry.
But I stayed glued to my chair, my mouth shut
In the hospital, when he died,
I cried more out of sadness for him
than out of any sense of loss.
We barely talked as it is.
Not out of malice, but lack of things to say.
Adulthood had shown me that
He did not know all, as my younger self believed.
And my worldview no longer meshed with his.
I don’t think he had trust in people.
Everyone was out to get something or take advantage.
Certain people made things worse -
Who those people were, we disagreed on.
It would have been easier if his thoughts were out of hate or harm.
It would have made the conflict within me less of a burden.
But my dad was a protector, and he was honest and good.
And he was stubborn, and he wanted to be right.
I kept my distance those last few years,
And all the while, I pitied him.
What a lonely life he led.
That’s the one thing I observed,
something he never told me,
that I know must have been true.
I saw it in the tired mechanic
who saw his family, the fruits of his labor,
for one brief, early dinner between
the end of the school day and the beginning of the night shift.
I saw it whenever he looked at my mother,
who carried a similar solitude - a love faded.
I saw it the day my uncle, his brother, was discovered.
My grandmother, his mother, was sobbing,
calling this person and that,
as we all sat around the table in somber silence.
I looked across and saw him staring into the distance.
For the first time in my life, that I could remember,
I swore that his eyes were glossy.
I walked around the table and hugged him from behind.
He gripped my arm tightly.
Him and Uncle Mike were the closest.
Quarantine was a strange time
where I got unique glimpses like that.
In the early pandemic, he laughed himself to tears
at a Bert Kreischer special.
I’d never seen him cackle that hard.
The rest of us laughed in shock -
A rare instance of family unity.
We were all going a little crazy.
My sister took it harder than I did.
She organized the celebration of life.
She got a really nice urn for his ashes.
The aftermath for me was more logistical.
I answered questions for organ donation.
I talked with the probate lawyer.
I now needed my own insurance.
I had already been self-sufficient.
His absence from my life was already normal.
It didn’t leave as large a wound.
His ashes are still in the box the funeral home gave me.
I’ve become the keeper of my parents’ marriage.
Mom had this souvenir book to record
their engagement, their wedding,
their first year together.
And I was bewildered at her descriptions
of the stranger she was married to.
The romantic gestures and joy she wrote about
did not resemble my father at all.
I was smacked with how little I actually knew.
He never mentioned dating anyone before my mother.
He never told any stories from his childhood.
He never divulged how he felt when I - his first child - was born.
He never said he loved fatherhood.
Maybe he did say something every now and then
But I didn’t pay attention or was too young to care.
He never told me, but I never asked anything either.
Some things I never really thought to ask.
Why did you go to Australia? Or Hawaii?
(He went in the 90s and always mentioned wanting to go back)
(Cars, not queens. That would have been a sight)
Who did you see Star Wars with when it first came out?
(He would have been 14 at the time)
Did you ever like reading?
(I never saw him pick up a book, but he raised very literate daughters)
Some things I was too afraid to broach.
How did he really feel about his weight, his health?
What drew him to my mom in the first place?
I saw time and age and life wear him down
and knew I was partially the cause
He cautioned about making careful decisions.
How the hell could I ask that?
I honestly don’t know how he would have answered.
Perhaps he would have been truthful.
In the end…did you want to die?
I forget that he’s dead sometimes.
Dad’s just minding his business
I could live without him.
Until I look at pictures.
Him leading my sister and I,
four and five, or five and six,
hand-in-hand down a dirt road,
our backs turned to the camera.
He and I bundled up in winter coats.
We both smile cheekily at the camera
with a blanket of snow behind us.
The later the photos become,
the less frequent his smiles.
But he is still always in the shot.
My birthday in elementary school,
back when they let your parents
come have lunch with you.
He’s in his shop uniform.
Middle school graduation.
His smile is very joyful in that one.
The silly pictures of him I would take for my Snap story in college
whenever he drove up to have breakfast with me on Sunday
only to drive right back home.
I then naturally drift to moments I couldn’t capture.
While I went to school for acting,
He did his best to come to every show I was a part of.
I see him in the audience laughing.
I see him filming my cast mates and I
singing in the lobby during A Christmas Carol.
He always donated to the department
even when he got a free ticket.
He never tried to talk me into a “smarter” path,
which I think surprised some people.
When my sister got her Master’s,
there were maybe fifteen of us at the dinner afterward,
I sat next to him as he paid for the whole table.
That was four months before he died.
I think of two weeks before he died,
the first time he was in the hospital.
The conversation was a little awkward.
But I remember the last thing he said as we left.
He was on a ventilator in his final days,
But that day, when he was fine,
and it was still just a crazy incident,
the last thing he ever said to his eldest daughter
And if there’s one thing I do know
Our relationship was flawed.
But that, I never doubted.
And when I left his room that final time,
so they could take him off life support,
I kissed him on his feverish forehead
and made sure to tell him I loved him
what exactly I’m mourning.
I mourn when he was just Dad -
When he wasn’t a person yet.
who was super smart and strong and could do no wrong.
whose life perhaps wasn’t what he wanted,
who was too…scared? unwilling?
to share the deeper parts of himself,
who was probably taught to never dissect or reveal them.
Whose daughter was too young and afraid to ask him,
And now sometimes forgets about him entirely.
I mourn what he’s missed.
There’s some things I am glad
I would dread to know his opinion.
But I’ve written a book since then.
It was always a half-serious, half-joke between us:
After graduation, he wanted a return on his investment.
All the loans and acting classes couldn’t be a total waste.
He was my supporter, but he was practical.
The book is dedicated to him,
and though not a play, I think it counts.
And so many friends and loved ones came
I didn’t realize it at the time -
that there was a hole in the crowd
where he should have been.
Where he undoubtedly would have been.
I don’t know if he would have actually read it.
I don’t know if I would want him to read it.
Grief really is a fucked up thing.
And I never let him know parts of me either.
Too scared of what the other would say.
But that doesn’t change the fact that
I desperately missed his hugs.
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