Point of Reference

Baby, baby
When I touch you like this
And when I hold you like that
It's so hard to believe
But it's all coming back to me now

My dad loved to work and he loved his friends. The rest of it -- fatherhood, husbandry -- he tried. In his heart, he wanted to be good at it, but sometimes flaws run deep. His essential failing was the fact he felt that all those who loved him owed him endless leeway. He thought because he brought home the income, everything else should be a free pass. He thought we owed him tolerance, support and respect for any neglectful, crazy or heartless thing he did. He thought it was his due.

My dad wasn't wired for monogamy. He wasn't wired for sobriety. He tried both from time to time and mostly failed. He liked Coors Light and he liked Seagram's 7. In the wintertime, he mixed brandy slushes in plastic paint cups from the hardware store because they held more. In any era, his corny, over-the-top humor was the life of every tavern. He loved his drinking buddies and some were like brothers. He liked flirting with women. And he'd follow either of them wherever they led.

For me, for Mom, for Erin, for Karen and her kids, we wanted more. We kept waiting for his perfection to arrive. He was a good man and his heart was in the right place. The raw material was there, we just couldn't raise him up to our ideal. We wanted him to be Superman, but the truth is, he was just a guy.

He wasn't bad. This isn't an indictment. He was just a kind, distracted alcoholic, and we've all made our peace with that through the years. He was a genuinely good guy. Really. As for the whole family man thing, he just didn't have the skills to pull it off. In later years, when cancer came, he got so much better at it....cancer, of course, being life's great irony. It helps you become who you always wanted to be, and just when you get good at it, it takes you away.

My dad was fun and funny and he made people laugh. His answering machine, like a Ray Stevens comedy song, often started with a long, drawn-out "there I was..." that was guaranteed to keep you riveted to the phone. Even now, I can hear his booming baritone, slightly slurred, giggling at his own silliness, as his over-the-top drama and run-on sentences rolled out like gold...

"I'm sorry I can't come to the phone, but there I was, sitting in the living room minding my own business, and I heard a noise up on the roof. I said to myself, "Self? That sounds like a noise up on the roof," so I ran out to the shop to get the ladder and my trusty 12-gauge I've had since I was a little bitty baby, and first of all, I couldn't find the ladder, because somebody didn't put it back where it's supposed to be, but that's a story for a different day and I know you don't have much time, so I grabbed a little step stool I keep in the corner, the one I use when I need to reach up and get the Scrabble board from the top of the closet, because most nights, that's just what I do, sit here with Pam and read the Bible and play Scrabble, but by that time, the noise on the roof was getting louder, and I said to myself, "Self? I do believe that noise is getting louder," and I have to admit, I was pretty dang scared by this time, so I stopped on the porch and sat down and had a Silver Bullet or two, just to steady my nerves, and then I carefully crept around back to the side of the house where somebody forgot to mow the grass again, but that's another story, and I know you're in a hurry..."

Those outgoing messages of my dad's could go on forever, and they did. I timed that one, and it was five-and-a-half minutes long. Four minutes on why he couldn't answer your call, because he fell off the roof investigating a noise, and another minute and a half explaining how he was now in Theda Clark Regional Medical Center in Neenah, and if you wanted him to return your call, you'd have to wait until spring, because he'd be on a ventilator until then.

That was my dad. He lived in a world where nothing had to be serious and life was but a dream.

And many loved him for that.

And many were left wanting more.

# # #

In parenting, I think most of us try daily to make up for the inadequacies of our parents. I think it's only natural, we run in the door and make a mad dash of it, like Bob Cratchit coming in late to the office... 

The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

I think that's what I've been doing with Justice and Justin...trying to overtake nine o'clock. Not just trying to avoid my own dad's failings, but not wanting to repeat their dad's failings, too. Most of us are trying to make up for one person's lifetime of poor paternal performance. Adam and I are trying to make up for two.

I think of that often in the middle of the night when Justice crawls into bed with us after a bad dream. It's the only time she'll let me hold her and cuddle her, and brush the hair out of her eyes, and softly stroke her hair and give her the gentle forehead kisses and safety and comfort every dad longs to give.

And as I stroke her hair and tell her she's safe, it comes to me with perfect clarity in the middle of the night, I only have one shot at this and I need to do it right, because when she grows up and finds a love of her own, the person who makes her feel safest will do this too, and it will make her feel the most loved, because it will remind her of me.

Dad is a point of reference for all little girls, and that love is either complete or incomplete. It's what women search for all their lives. And some men, too.

There's great responsibility in that honor.

And it's sad that so many dads are pillars for their friends, dependable on the job, but when it comes to the rest of it, the family part that should matter the most, they're too tired to give any more, and they're just not up to the challenge.

Like my dad, who I loved with all my heart. Who left me wanting more.

If you forgive me all this
If I forgive you all that
We forgive and forget
And it's all coming back to me

I finished crying in the instant that you left
And I can't remember where or when or how
And I banished every memory you and I had ever made

But when you touch me like this
And you hold me like that
I just have to admit
That it's all coming back to me now

Having children reminds me how much fathers live in sons and daughters. And in every relationship they'll ever have as grown-ups, Adam and I will be their point of reference.

As I go through my days making wishes about who I hope they can be for me, I stop and remind myself how important it is that I set the bar high and never stop providing what is essential and right for them.

"It's All Coming Back to Me Now," c.1989 Jim Steinman. From the Celine Dion album "Falling Into You," Columbia, Epic Records.