My dad spent his adult life without his father. At about 20, his dad died from colon cancer.
Fast forward almost 20 years from then to when I was 15 years old. I took a charter bus from my hometown of Kansas City, MO to Texas with other youth and a few adult chaperones from my church. For some reason I didn’t understand then nor now, in the middle of the trip, I began crying unconsolably on that bus. My youth pastor tried to comfort me and understand the reason behind my sudden show of emotion, but I refused to explain, I think out of embarrassment or my personal preference towards maintaining my privacy. I did, however, tell my dad what happened when I finally got in touch with him (no cell phone back then). I confessed that I was suddenly saddened at the thought of him not having a father on Father’s Day, a thought that I had never had before.
My tears flowed at this realization as though they had built up after years of guilt from being so oblivious to this missing relationship in my father’s life. My dad, seemingly instinctively, reassured me that he was ok and that I shouldn’t be sad. He didn’t say that he was sad too or that he missed his dad. Thinking back on it, his words and actions lead me to think he just wanted to move through the uncomfortable situation as quickly as possible. My guess is so that he could get back to where he seemed most comfortable: trying to be funny, in a “dad joke” kind of way not a “Original Kings of Comedy” kind of way. Emptying my apparent reservoir of tears that day, was the last time I embodied the sympathy I generated from my belief that my father experienced sadness on Father’s Day.
As I recall this Father’s Day memory, the presumed gravity of my dad not having his dad, the figurative lightbulb is going off above my head – why would he care that I don’t have my dad on Father’s Day if he didn’t seem to care about not having one? While I can’t speak to his heart or his feelings, I can say that I have ZERO memories of my dad reflecting on his dad on this day. He spent his entire life as a father without one, yet never shared with his children (or at least not me, his eldest; I can’t speak for my sister), about what this was like for him. This is not an accusation; it is an observation.
My dad, like his dad before him, was there throughout the childrearing years and was considered a good dad during that time. (Note that I only know about my grandfather from a few stories I heard about him, and no major red flags come to mind.) Upon my grandfather’s passing, my dad appeared to move forward without much acknowledgement of pain or sorrow from his loss. Again, this is only from what I can tell which I fully acknowledge is incomplete. Still, maybe it is not too farfetched to believe that he doesn’t realize the pain he caused by ceasing communication with his grown children because when communication ceased with his father, albeit due to a completely different and far more finite circumstance, he soldiered on. Is that what my dad expects his daughters to do?
This thought makes me sad. Sad for him if his grief is incomplete in any way. Sad for myself and my family that contends with the sorrow and confusion of his departure from our lives. This time, I won’t cry about it like I did when I was a teen. Instead I will use it as an opportunity to reflect, learn, grow and share for my own benefit and the chance that someone else in a relatable situation may find solace in reading about and connecting over this part of our shared life journey.
