Many knew him better than I did. He had titles like husband, son, brother, and friend, but he was Dad to me.
Now you would think that being his son I would be in the category of those who knew him better, but unfortunately this is not the case. My father died when I was eight. Losing a father is rough at any age, but losing him when you are young makes it difficult to reconcile what you think you know about him, what you are told about him, and who he actually was.
My Father’s Name was Steven. I have no idea when he was born. I know that he was older than my mom by two or three years and that she was born in 1957. To some people it may seem important to know when your father was born, and maybe it will be important to me later, but right now the fact that he died rather negates the importance of a birthday. A birthday only tells you that you are another year older. For my Dad there is no “another year older”.
He was born in North Adams, Massachusetts and grew up in a sleepy village called Colrain. The village consisted of a post office, feed mill, gas station, and an elementary school. It was, and still is, a very pastoral New England village with modest mountains and beautiful trees, and cow pastures. He was the oldest son of Gerald and Janice; they had two other sons after him David and Gerald Jr. I know little about his childhood; I’m sure that I have been told quaint stories about it in the past yet I can’t seem to remember any of them at the moment.
I do know from my mother’s account that being the oldest my father was the apple of his parent’s eye; he could do no wrong. Gerry Jr., being the youngest, was coddled like any baby in the family is. David on the other hand was in the middle, and with good reason he had the middle child syndrome. In all honesty there was nothing that David could do that was good enough for his father; he was always being compared to his older brother.
Gramma had it rough as well. From the pictures I’ve seen she was a fairly good looking woman when she was younger. As much as I love my Grampa though, Gramma married a WWII Navy man who wasn’t the most charming or optimistic of people. I think his year or two at sea left him, for lack of a better word, a little salty. From what I have been told he had a way of berating her, and after awhile I think she gave up on her looks and the looks of her house. Before my Grampa is judged too harshly though, it should be known that he loved her. She died in 1999 and that was the only time that I can remember seeing him cry. He also loved all of his children in his own way, and he always wanted his grandchildren around.
Grampa and Gramma worked hard at their jobs and at home. They always had a very large garden, and they raised chickens and sometimes pigs for the table. I can remember Grandpa taking me and my siblings into one of his little chicken houses where he had all the little chicks in an incubator; they were all fuzzy and yellow. Anyway both of my grandparents worked hard outside of the house, which gave my Father his work ethic. Inside the house was a different story. Grandma had mostly given up on appearances. One time my Mother had to tell them that she could not bring her children down to see them if they could not clean up a little. Now my mom is not a prude, and she is not the most organized person in the world; my grandparents were just very unclean and unorganized. That is just the kind of house my dad grew up in.
The kind of house he grew up in is about all I know about his childhood. Except that sometime between the ages of 10 and 12 he found out that he had Diabetes, and that he needed insulin every day
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When he was in high school, I have been told he was very popular. He was not a jock, but he was in a band. For as long as I knew him he was always in a band. He could play electric guitar, acoustic, bass, and even banjo. He learned all of them by ear; he never took any lessons. I didn’t inherit that ability.
When he and my Mom married he worked in a mill during the week and played clubs and lounges on the weekend. He loved doing it, and fortunately it served as a source of extra income for them. When he would get laid off from one mill he would keep playing in one of his bands while he looked for a job at another mill. I cannot remember all of the names of his bands, but I do remember one of them because I thought it was so cool. It was called the Mystery ship. That name probably sounds a little corny today but then, to me, that was a cool name, and my Dad was a Rock-n-Roll god.
On occasion if his band had a gig at a location suitable for families’ mom would bring us to watch him. I cannot remember much about it though, since they generally played a little later than I was used to staying up. I just remember showing up, hearing a song or two, and then waking up at home in my bed.
The fact that he worked at mills, played lounges on the weekends, and had a wife and three kid’s kind of points to the fact that we were poor. From the time I was born in 1977 to when he died in 1986 minimum wage only went from $2.65 to $3.35 an hour and he did not make much more than that, but with Dad and Mom we never went without food. As children we always got fed first, even if that meant my parents did not eat. Fortunately, that didn’t happen too often, but it did happen.
My Dad worked like a dog so that mom could stay home with us children. He tried to spend time with us and did all he could for us. I can remember once when I was three or four years old being so happy to see Dad when he came home from work, it was well after dark, and he had brought each of us a cheap toy from the grocery store. To me it was the greatest toy in the world. My Dad had thought of me and my siblings after a long day at work. We were poor, we lived in an old single wide trailer on my Grandfathers land (about 300 yards behind him), he always drove an old beat up car that he had to fix himself repeatedly, and my Dad thought of us on his way home.
Weekends on which Dad didn’t have a gig my parents and grandparents might take us up to Hog Back Mountain in Vermont where there is a natural history museum. There you can look for miles in any direction and see trees and mountains. It is still one of my favorite places to visit. There was another place on top of a hill in Vermont that had a playground, my grandparents and parents would take us up there for picnics on Sunday afternoons. We would eat and then play till we were tired enough to sleep on the way home. At certain times of the year if we pushed through the bushes and trees that surrounded the playground you would be looking down on a gradual slope full of wildflowers. I will always remember those oranges, yellows, purples, and blues.
There are probably a few other things that I could recount about my times with my father, all of them just as small as these. All of them were great memories, but all of them were small.
I remember that he eventually started being visibly sick and he was home a lot more. It was nice to have him home more, but by that time my sister and I were already in school. I am pretty sure that he eventually went on disability. I can recall someone saying, as he was starting to look larger, that he was retaining a lot of water. I think mom said at times she had to lance cysts and drain them. Diabetes was getting the best of him. He had many heart attacks, most of them silent. The last one was not silent.
It was in November of 1986 and snow had already fallen in Western Massachusetts. By this time we were living in an apartment complex in Greenfield, a big town but not quite a city at the time. For some reason I liked to watch the snow falling under the street lights and I liked to see the light reflecting off of the completely white ground, so in the winter I often woke well before sunrise and watched the scene through a window in my room. My brother and I shared a room and we had bunk beds; being the oldest I had the top and I was able to look out of our second floor window easily from my bed.
This particular morning I woke up around 6 A.M. and I can remember looking at the light reflecting off of the snow, and everything was peaceful. All of a sudden I heard my father gasp for his last breath. It is the most ominous sound that anyone, especially a child, can ever hear coming from a loved one.
I got up, and when I went into the hallway my mother told me to go to the neighbors and have them call an ambulance. I did, and my mother stayed upstairs trying to resuscitate him. I came back quickly from the neighbors and my sister, who is a year older than me, was in the hallway upstairs screaming and crying. My Mom told me to calm her down. I wasn’t trying to be funny, but I did the only thing that television had taught me to do; I slapped her clean across the face. Surprisingly it worked! Soon one of the neighbors was helping Mom perform CPR and we children were taken to the neighbors to wait.
We waited until 10 or 11 that morning when Mom came back with the news. She sat down in front of us and asked us to come to her. The others did. I could not. She told us, and then she said it was okay to cry. The others did. I could not. I didn’t know what to do or how to act; I was only eight years old.
Sadly, I can relate more from that day than anyone would care to remember, and yet I can remember less than I would like to about my life with my father before that day. This is enough to make a grown man, who has dealt with his father’s death very well for most of his life, break down in tears every time he thinks about it too deeply.
I badly want to blame the doctors and I probably have good reasons to do so, but I also know that he did not watch his diet as well as he could have. If he had done that maybe I would have had him a few more years or maybe just a few more days, anything would have been great. I do hold the smallest bit of resentment toward him, but it is really hard to resent him when you are told by all who really knew him how great he was.
I know he was a good man and father. He told me he loved me. He gave me everything I needed. When my Mom tells me that I look, think, or act just like my Dad it makes me feel good. I know that she loved him an awful lot, and if I act like him I must be special and be loved an awful lot too.
One such occasion was fairly recent. I live in Pennsylvania now, and my Mom lives in North Carolina with my Stepfather. We were having an anniversary party for my in-laws, and my parents came. Later in the night I was dancing with my mom and she said out of the blue that it was good to be able to visit her son. I asked her why, and she told me that it was just like having my Dad around. I did not know what to say, but though it is kind of sad it brings me a level of comfort and happiness to know that I am like him. There are many things I do not know about him and there are many things that I did not get to do with him, but knowing that I am quite a bit like him helps me know him better.
I didn’t get to know my dad, to have those father son moments that so many men take for granted. There was one thing we accomplished that I always think of fondly, even if it was just a little premature.
I was five years old at the time. My Dad and I were sitting out in the car, we had just arrived home. Dad cracked open a beer, and with a big smile I asked if I could try some. Coyly he handed over the beer and told me that I could have a sip and that I shouldn’t tell my mother. Of course I agreed, and then I proceed to guzzle the beer. He took it from me quickly, and I could see him smile a little. He finished the beer and then we went inside. I never did tell my mom.
I think I remember this more fondly than anything else, because I did not reach many milestones with him. He didn’t teach me to play guitar or teach me to drive. He wasn’t there when I turned 18 or 21, and he wasn’t there when I got married. But I was able to do something that I would not be able to do later in life. I sat down and had a beer with my Dad.
I’ve never been able to find a beer that tasted as good as that one.