2000-06-19 - 21:00 MDT

June 19,2000

Realization

Now I admit to myself how wrong my perceptions were.

I was into a long, involved discourse on Fatherhood and my relations with my Dad, when it got so stuffy that the claustrophobia became unbearable. So every thing I had said up to the point of nausea was an unfair indictment of my Dad by comparison.

So to get to the point of what I want to say will on the way be much shorter.

I never up to this point, understood my Dad. Over the years I found out how painfully shy he was and how aloof. His demeanor was polite, but he had little to say most of the time. It seemed to embarass him when in youthful exuberance I would try to hug him. He didn't chastise me but his discomfort became obvious to even a little tyke. Over the years it built a ravine too wide to cross, until we took him to his house to live out the rest of his too short years. Even then it was a process of mind reading or mental telepathy to understand the meaning behind the things he said, which for the most part was very little.

I did begin to realize that he did love me and trust me after we brought him to his home.

Today, reading the various journals came the realization that I was a fortunate person to have a Dad such as he. In his last year I handled all his financial dealings with the city, state and federal governments, used his money to pay his bills and purchase his necessities. He left his modest personal estate and his affairs to settle to me, with small bequests to a couple of other people close to him. But, still, I was so fortunate that he never abused me in any way, my spankings were well deserved, and he saw that I had the necessary things plus as much more as he and Mom could give. The only way my young life could have been better I guess would have been the absence of a depression.

So, I miss him and mourn the fact that we couldn't converse one on one as I do with our grown children. What a dumb dodo I was - - - - I was pretty perceptive, except in the place I should have been.

In remembrance Father, from a son who is finally approaching full maturity.

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