open spaces and heat lightning
Friday, August 6, 2010 
Here, a lot of numbers: Yesterday was the 35th anniversary of my father’s passing. He was only 27 when he was in an industrial accident at work and left my mom a 23-year-old widow with an almost-two-year-old motormouth daughter and a little boy on the way. This year, I become ten years older than he ever was. That is a strange, strange feeling.
I’ve heard stories about my father, but at this point they’re the same ones over and over again. There are only so many pictures, too. Sometimes I crave seeing new ones, and it’s hard to remember that I can’t, because there are no more. He was a volunteer fireman, and so he’s been roped into dunk tank duty in this picture. It was taken in July. At this point, he had weeks left. And he had no idea, and I’m glad for that.
I don’t understand the mechanics of missing someone that you don’t remember. I do miss him, though; I always have. I’ve seen the echoes of missing him in my mother all my life, and in my grandmother, too. Everyone loved him; no one ever had a bad thing to tell me about him. To say I missed out is a huge understatement.
His own mother and sisters were always kind to me, too, although they didn’t live close by. When I was in high school, I spent a week at their place, and one night they hung a sheet in the yard and projected home movies on it. It was the middle of summer, and there was heat lightning all around, and there he was, moving again. I don’t know his voice, but now I know his walk, the way his mouth moved, the way he ducked his head a bit when he knew someone was filming. I got some more stories out of them, too.
In the intervening years, I’ve managed to pull together what amounts to a minor character, when it comes to him—mannerisms and opinions and actions—but the holes in that knowledge are yawn-wide. A girl’s daddy ought to be a major character, though, and so the holes are as intrinsic to my concept of him as the details I do know. He wouldn’t have been mysterious to anyone who knew him or who ate at a table with him or stumbled home with him after a night out, but he’s mysterious to me… what I know is not enough, and I’m left always wanting more, no matter how accustomed I get to the open spaces.
Reader Comments (9)
One of the things I'm most proud of, possibly the most, is that Grammy once told you, "He's just like Willy." I was going to say it's an honor to be thought of that way, but "honor" sounds a bit too stuffy for what I have in mind. It gives me warm fuzzies inside and a red glow in my heart. Although, like you, there is so much I have to take on faith, as to what it means.
Maybe I remember more than I think I do.
Oh this was incredible. I had no idea you, your mother, and essentially your brother as well lost him so early on. How did your mother cope with his loss and how did she raise the two of you by herself?
It's hard to say... I was so little. When I was older, I always got the sense that I could ask some things, but not as much as I wanted, because I never wanted to make her sad. We were really lucky that my dad's employer took care of us after the accident; she was able to buy a house and put money away for school for the both of us. I'm sure that helped.
Kim,
I had no idea you had lost your father that way. I'm sorry.
In my life fathers have always been an empty variable. My mom divorced her first husband several years before she had me. My biological father was around for a while -- he wanted to get married after he learned my mom was pregnant -- but my mom was feeling her freedom for the first time and wanted, as she later said to me, "a child, not a husband." I apparently met him, but I never knew him. My stepfather, who fathered my two brothers, was an absentee father even when he lived in the house.
I'm finding it hard to describe my reaction to your post. You feel your father's absence differently than I feel mine. You wish you could have known him. I don't wish for that at all. I want to say I understand feeling the absence of someone I didn't know, but I honestly don't.
I wish it were different for you because you wish you knew him better. I bet he was a great guy to know.
That was an incredible tale to read. Thanks for sharing it with us.
Add me to the list of sympathizers. While my birth father never passed away, he did leave while I was yet to be born. To say he's dead to me would be unfair to your own situation. However, he only really exists to me as a series of stories and a few random photos, both old and new.
Like you, I've managed to piece together an idea of who he was and is. It's surreal sometimes to think that there is, or was, this person out there who brought you into this world, and to be so disconnected with who they are or were.
That's a fascinating photo. I'm glad you have it. And thanks for reminding me at the end of the things I need to remember to take care of in 14 years.
Danielle and Scott--these comments are so amazing to me. Thank you both for writing them. I've been thinking about what I wanted to say in response since yesterday. Writing about our families is such a loaded endeavor anyway, but for all three of us, we've grown up always knowing that this particular absence was a fact. It's just not the same when you don't have any experience of The Guy except for what someone else tells you about him, especially when you're little and most of your friends' families come complete with Dad Modules.
It means a lot to me to know his story counts. So many of the people in his life are gone now that I feel good knowing that you know about him and that you felt something while you read about him, even if the feelings are complicated. The way Danielle put it, an empty variable, will stay with me for a long time. If anything, all those experiences taught you what you really wanted in a relationship and to stick it out--seventeen years in, and you're a model for me. And Scott, I think that "dead to me" might be strong but not necessarily unfair. If that's the kind of guy he was, well, you and your mom were well shed of him. Look what a great job she did on her own!
I don't think I knew this about you. About him. Wow.
My favorite part of that photo has got to be his shoes.
You wrote this beautifully.
Jeanette, yeah, those shoes... there's a little story of their own in them, I think. And thank you too for the compliment--coming from you that is high praise.