Memories of my dad

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  Ko Phangan, Thailand
Friday, February 20, 2009

Second day of being fatherless. Fourth day of Ekadasi Kriya. Om.

The other students in my class are giving me the space to be in silence and contemplate. It is nice not to have bereavement conversations with others. I had those before, when my brother died. People seem to either be lost for words or just want to tell you their bereavement story in the hope it will ease your pain (and probably theirs). 


I feel no pain. For the most part, I feel nothing. The relationship I had with my father did not really include him. It mostly included his absence in the early part of my life and my realizations throughout my adulthood that my father was not much of a father figure to me. I think I never really had a father figure.


He was the man married to my mother. The one she always fought with. The one she sent us to bring home from the coffee house where he was drinking coffee and playing cards and backgammon with his friends from "the old country" (meaning men who came to Israel from Arab countries).


I have only few memories of my father.


I think  my earliest childhood memory is lying in the upper bunk bed of our children's room trying to fall asleep while my parents were arguing in Arabic in the living room. My mother was shouting at my father and he was trying to appease her. Suddenly the door to our bedroom opened and my father entered it and hid behind the curtain that was right next to me. I still remember the sound of his nervous breath next to me. A moment later my mother entered the room, turned on the lights, and kept on shouting at him, still hiding behind the curtains. To this day, I still don't understand what exactly happened there. 


I think the first time I realized I had a father I was around three years old. He was returning from the army. Mom got us excited us for his coming. When he entered, I remember being impressed by the man in uniform. I remember him smiling above me and then passing by me. I don't remember what happened afterwards.
I also remember the one time he toweled me off after a bath, a task my mother sent him to do. I was probably five. I remember standing on the washing machine and him drying me off with a towel. I think he was in a good mood because he smiled at me. For some reason, though, I think it was an awkward moment for both of us.


In my photo album there is a photograph of me sitting on the back of my father's bicycle, my left thigh wrapped in a large bandage. I tried jumping off our porch to the yard but my leg got caught up in the edge of the metal wire we used as clothes line. I remember the deep cut into my flesh, the white and red dots that were the meat inside my skin. I was really scared. I know that my father took me to the clinic on his bike and I remember getting the stitches. I also remember that on the way back home we were stopped a few buildings before ours and our neighbor took a photo of us with his new camera, a novelty at those days. I also remember that we stopped at another neighbor's home, a very large woman with overgrown moles on her face. She always scared me, even though she was always smiling and always offered me sweets and nuts. I remember all of this, and I know my father was in this event, but I do not remember any interaction with him.


I remember being forced to go to synagogue with him. I did not like to go there. I never understood what the men were doing there and even when I tried to follow their lead, holding the prayer book and reading (sometimes quietly and sometimes aloud) while slightly moving my body back and forth, I never connected to the words in the book.


Once, on Passover eve, I fainted at the synagogue. I remember being revived by the Synagogue's Shamash who used the rose water used for Havdalah. I know I was there with my father, but I do not remember any interactions with him.


Once, after wandering in the synagogue's back yard, I came back inside the synagogue to ask my father if I could go home. When I lifted my eyes from his black pants I realized the man I was talking to was not my father. I remember hoping that man would have been my father. He was handsome and seemed kind.


I remember my father taking me to a soccer game, one of his greatest passions. I distinctly remember his look of disapproval when he realized that I was not interested to stay and watch the game.


Later memories included him coming back home from work and we had to get off the couch so he can lay on it, still in his smelly socks. He would soon fall asleep and snored so loud we could not hear the TV. We tried to convince him to change that habit and go to sleep in his bed but he refused.


Other TV memories included watching TV with him (same setup- he's on the couch and us on the rug below, fetching things for him) with his constant narrating of what we are watching. He was often completely off the mark. He was not, I realized later in life, an intelligent person.


I remember having to keep very quiet when he came mid-day for a nap. Once he woke up because I was crying in the other room. He came to me and slapped me with both hands on either side of my face. I think it was the first time he hit me. Hitting us was usually my mother's job. Because he slapped me on my ears I lost my hearing for a couple hours or maybe even days. I remember being in shock. Not because of the loss of hearing, but because he actually hit me. I hated him so much that day.


I remember him hurting his back and having to recover at home for what seemed to be an endless period of time. His "bed" was the living room sofa and as soon as we got back home from school he started with ordering us around to do things for him. I hated his constant moaning. I hated his constant complaining. After being neglected by him my entire childhood, he now demanded me to take care of him. I hated him passionately.


I remember the never-ending quarrels my mother had with him. She was never satisfied with him. He was always trying to calm her down, somewhat whiningly. I thought of him as weak and often wondered why these two got married in the first place.


A significant part of my childhood included going in the afternoon to his kiosk, attached to the cinema, to help him out. I worked with him for years but besides liking to sneak in to see the movies and his complaints about the cinema's owner, I don't remember any interactions with him. I don't think we ever had a conversation when I was a child.


In later years, after attending the Landmark Forum, I proactively tried to create a new relationship with him, engaging him in conversations. I asked him about his relationship with my mother and why he stuck around. "A woman is like a cow", he answered, "sometimes she gives you milk, and sometimes she kicks you. You got to take the good with the bad". I never really saw them having the "good", though, with the exception of one time entering their bedroom and seeing them make out. I had no idea what they were doing, but because they stopped I figured I was not supposed to be there so I closed the door and left the room.


Physically, I look exactly like him. Looking at his photos up to my current age I can literally see myself in outdated outfits and hairstyles. In the past few years, when I look in the mirror in the early morning I see my father's aging face in the mirror. I don't like that.


Knowing that I am a physical copy of him, and knowing the plenty of attention I get from women, I wonder how was his relationship with other women. Being gay I never do anything with the interest I get from women. But he, supposedly, was not gay. How did he react to all of those advances? I know there are more than 40 years between us and times have changed and all, but i clearly remember my aunts commenting about his good looks. I don't recall him looking at other women or even at my mother. I recall him being only interested in watching soccer games. Was he faithful to my mother? Was he gay too? I have no idea.


When I came out to my family eight years ago he was silent. As always he followed my mother's lead, but it was clear to me that he did not approve. He never wanted to hear me talk about it. In fact, last time I was in Israel I brought home a guy I was seeing at the time. When that guy was supposed to come again to pick me up a couple of weeks later my father told me not to bring "these kind of people to the house". I chose to find his attitude offensive and declared war. Here he was in bed for almost 20 years, slowly decaying while moaning and complaining that no one comes to visit him and how much he wanted to die. And here I am coming to visit and actually spending time with him, sitting near his bed in his depressing room asking him to tell me stories about his childhood, and he is still rejecting me.


I knew that he was not a bad person. I knew that his point of view was a result of his upbringing and unfortunate circumstances, as the not-so-bright child of an extraordinarily smart yet very strict father. From a strict father he moved to a controlling wife, never allowing himself the time to explore himself. I knew that he was lost in this life, not knowing why he was here, following other people's lead blindly.


I knew all of that and yet I chose to have no compassion and to focus on feeling rejected. So I announced war and stopped visiting him. Less then six months later I get a phone call from my brother telling me my father is dead. No U-turn allowed.


And yet I'm feeling nothing. No regrets. No sorrow. No relief. No compassion. Maybe just a little guilt for feeling nothing. Maybe some sadness for not feeling grief. Maybe realizing that his death is not a loss of a father to me because I really never had a father.


I'm going to continue with my silence and see what comes up. I'd like to think that some compassion will show up. I'm happy for him that he died. This was not a joyous life for him or anyone around him. Now, returning to non-physical, he can reconnect to joy.

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