In the last year, as we've all dealt with Dad's illness in different ways, I've thought mostly about my relationship with him, and what I was taking into my life from him. It wasn't always easy to live with him: he was a volatile man, and he had high, sometimes inscrutable standards. Because he traveled, he was gone during the week throughout most of my life with him, which made it difficult to share daily events with him and come to know him on a day-to-day basis. There were times in my life, especially during my teenage years, when I feared that I would never be able to make him proud of me, and I swore that I would never, in even the tiniest way, ever be anything like him.
But now that I am over that 40-year-old hill, am a parent, and especially since it became clear that soon both of my parents would be gone, it has been important to me to see those things in me which come from them.
Probably because I am a mother and not a father, it has taken me a long time to see what I have gotten from Dad besides arthritis and low blood pressure. I can hear myself sounding more and more like Mom every day as I raise my kids. But I have worked to find Dad in me, especially as our time together has grown short, so that if we needed to say things to one another, there would be enough time.
Let me tell you what I found.
Dad was a man who took life in big bites. He enjoyed food, drink, laughter, a sly joke, a fast dance. While I'm certain that folks of his generation do not think of themselves this way, he was a sensual man, who enjoyed taste, smell, texture, and beauty. While mother was the one who experimented with foods, Dad was the one who reveled in their tastes. He liked the feel of his toes in the sand at the beach, and the taste of a cold beer on a hot day. He liked music and rhythm, and loved to lead his dancing partners in complex patterns. I know that he would have agreed with one of my favorite authors, Robert Heinlein, who said "Everything in excess! Moderation is for monks." As I look at myself, I am sure that Dad is the one from whom I get my tendency to experience things to the fullest, to give myself up to life and what it has to offer.
Perhaps because of this love of life, Dad was a passionate man. He was quick to anger, and quick to forgive. Life with him was like the Florida weather, including deafening thunderstorms followed swiftly by sunshine. Dad always had an opinion about everything, and those opinions were punctuated by a pointing finger and expressive gestures. He loved as strongly as he disliked, and you were never in any doubt about where he stood on any issue. But despite his volatile temper, he was generous and compassionate. I remember times when he came home to tell us of a family whose house had burned down or flooded out, and we all pitched in to pack food boxes and bags of clothing. Or when he would go out in the middle of the night because a Masonic brother had died or was in the hospital. We didn't have a lot, but both he and Mom would always be willing to set another place at the table, or give a friend a place to stay overnight. I suspect my family and friends will not have any trouble recognizing these characteristics in me -- I know that I have his hot temper, and I hope that I have his generous nature, as well.
Nor will they have any trouble seeing that I inherited Dad's packrat tendencies. My office at home is packed to the ceiling with boxes, fully half of which are filled with nostalgic junk. I remember once helping him clean out the basement, and finding a carton filled to the top with coasters, napkins, matchbooks, and menus from restaurants he and Mom had gone to in the first years of their marriage. It was hard for him to throw it out, and he sat and looked at every piece, and told me stories about them, before we finally sent the box to the garbage can. But most surprising to me was discovering that he had kept every Father's Day card we girls ever made in Sunday School, and that he had kept every school picture of all of us, carefully labeled as to year and age.
When I was a child, I did not understand Dad's insistence that a person's word was their bond. I wanted to be able to back out of commitments and not do things which were uncomfortable or difficult. Dad wouldn't let me weasel out of anything. As I got older, I saw that it confused him that people could say one thing and then do another. Dad had a strong sense of honor and justice. If he said he'd do a thing, he would do it. As I have grown older, and the world has grown more violent, confusing, and capricious, I have come to realize that my honor and my ethics are the only anchor I have, and the only rock on which I can anchor my family's well-being. I have come through times when standing my ground has been very difficult, particularly when I know that something I have done has been unpopular, turned out wrong, or hurt people. Dad would never let me make excuses; from him I learned that if I had the strength to take what was coming to me, things would be better in the long run.
A wise friend sent me email on Friday after hearing of Dad's death. In it he commented that the times and places that shaped Dad were hard and unforgiving; farm life in rural Georgia, Miami during the depression, World War II. We can only hope that we, and our children, will not have to experience these things. Dad was not a saint, and he lived a rich, full life. Anyone who tackles life the way Dad did is bound to have walked on both easy street and the wild side. The most important thing for me about Dad's life is that it gave him the experience to accept me, as an adult, for both my good and my bad. When I called him to tell him that my first marriage had broken up, he is the only person who didn't ask me why. He told me that it was my business, and that whatever I needed, he'd help me with it. That was the first time that I, as an adult, realized that he really did love me.
And so, when I look at myself in the mirror and see that I really do have the Odum chin and Dad's swelte physique, I can also see that I lucky to have his passionate nature, his love of people and of life itself, and his strength. With any luck, in forty years, my children will look at themselves, and count themselves lucky, too.
Thank you.