Dear Dad ... Thanks for everything

The following is an essay I had published in the June issus of Mankato Magazine. My dad died in 1997. I still miss him very, very much.


I hope you enjoy it.


-robb


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My main-floor bedroom in the house where I grew up faced the backyard. I could look out at our dog, Sadie, romp around the yard, or across the alley at the McCoy family, whose sons were thugs (one of whom my friends and I watched streak through the neighborhood on a dare from his friends.)

 But that view is ingrained in my mind for another reason: Sitting on my bed and staring out the window is how I spent one of the longest nights of my life. I was maybe 9. And I heard my mom on the phone arguing with my dad about when he was coming home. After she hung up, I heard her talking to one of my older sisters about how he was over at a buddy's house and how he was already (bombed, and would probably kill himself when he tried to drive home.

 They spoke in hushed tones so little Robbie (that's me) wouldn't hear. But I heard. And when you're 9 years old, your brain can comprehend death pretty easily, but not necessarily the subtle hints and nuances of sarcasm. I retreated to my room, of course, wondering if my dad would make it home alive. 

My dad was a drinker. And not just once in a while. Every night. Usually about a 12-pack. Pfeiffer. Sometimes Schmidt. Sometimes Miller High Life. Even at age 9 I knew his brands and how much he drank. All the clerks at his favorite liquor stores knew me. When I got strong enough, I used to like to run to the back of the liquor store to the wall of coolers and grab that brown case of Pfeiffer Famous Beer, lugging it up to the counter to show my dad how strong I was. I became very aware of how the rules of the house gradually changed as the night went on and he drank more. He was a happy drunk. The more he drank, the more I could get away with. 

And as any evening grew older, so too grew the likelihood that he had no business being behind the wheel of his brown Chevy truck. A happy drunk -- but, like anyone else, he wasn't necessarily skilled at driving after consuming a 12-pack. I'd been in the car with him when he'd been "bombed." 

And so there I sat on my bed, the one with the bedspread that had the logos of all the NFL teams, hands folded across my lap. I remember looking down at my hands, seeing them clasped together like I'd do on cue on Sundays at our church, the Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. I wondered whether I should be praying now. 

When I started my watch of our empty driveway, the sun was shining. And when the sun went down, I was still sitting there, waiting for my dad to come home, convinced there was an actual chance he wouldn't come home alive.

 ***

 It's almost unfair to start a Father's Day essay with an account of how my father's drinking had a meaningful, lasting impact on my life. But I did that for a very good reason: to show that, despite my father's faults, it was Dad who taught me everything I know about being a father. 

Anyone who knows me will tell you I usually don't hesitate to talk about my kids. If you let me, I'll take up a good chunk of your afternoon bragging about how my 14-year-old daughter and I share the same taste in music. I'll tell you all about her countless hours volunteering at the food shelf, or how she's never not been on the A Honor Roll, or how, every time she cries when she sees a dead animal on the road or a truck full of turkeys headed for slaughter, I cry a little bit, too.

 I can kill an hour of your time telling you how proud I am of my 11-year-old son making the traveling baseball team, how he beat out 160 other kids to take first place in the Math Masters speed round, or how he can read an entire, seven-book fantasy series in a few days. I talk about them a lot. Probably too much. I find myself wanting to apologize sometimes for sharing stories about them with people who, most likely, don't really give a damn what book my son read or what noble cause my daughter is championing. Ten minutes of your life you'll never get back, right? 

The truth, though, is that I really don't care how well they do in school or in band or on the baseball field, as long as they're trying their hardest. I'd be very happy with B Honor Roll, or with a non-traveling baseball team. If the effort is there, that's all a parent can really ask. Where I do care is an area not measured with As or Bs, or with trophies held triumphantly high, or medals pinned to their chest. That area is this: how nice are you to people, how well do you mind your manners, and when people think of you, do they wish they had you for a friend? This is what my father believed. And while his drinking was never a source of positive role-modeling, the way he treated people was something I never forgot. 

***

 It's funny, sometimes, the things that can trigger tears. I remember the day my dad died like it was yesterday. No, he didn't die that crazy night when my 9-year-old self stared out the window for an eternity. Instead it was a good, old-fashioned heart attack. Knocked him right over in his cubicle where he worked for more than 30 years. He was gone instantly. 

My wife took the call at home, but I was already at work. We lived in Amboy at the time, and I had to make a 30-minute commute to work. On that day, I remember, for some reason, playing the song "Name" by the Goo Goo Dolls over and over. And as I sat in my cubicle, humming that song in my head, my wife showed up and delivered the news. My daughter was 3 weeks old at the time. My dad had set eyes on her just once.

 "I think about you all the time.

 But I don't need the same.

 It's lonely where you are, come back down. 

And I won't tell 'em your name."

 I'm not completely sure what this song means. But in my head, this song represents my father. I imagine myself sometimes, almost 15 years after his death, being able to talk to him in some way, telling him to come and hang out with me. He can stay invisible or take some unrecognizable form -- whatever story I had to make up to make it fit the lyrics.

 The point is, he's not here. And I really wish he were, sometimes. I never get angry at him, of course. But as I'm going along and I get to a sticky parenting situation, I'd like to be able to pick up a phone and call my dad and say, "Hey, remember when I was (fill in the blank here with any random idiotic thing a young boy might do)? How did you handle that?" I'd love to be able to sit down -- even with a brewski -- around a campfire and talk to Bob about how good it felt to watch my daughter take her first steps, compete in a swim meet or perform in a play. Or to watch my son slap a base hit to the opposite field or get one of the highest standardized test scores in his school. I'd love to talk to him about my writing, why I love Springsteen, and about my absolute anguish this year over the damn Twins. Obviously, I can't. And sometimes the thought of that makes me a little sad. 

Especially if I'm alone in the car and that song comes on. 

*** 

My buddy Ken and I posed for a couple of photos, helmets on, standing proudly next to our Yamaha three-wheelers. Then we headed on down the road. And once we got out of my mom's sight, we ditched those helmets and hit the trails sans head gear. 

These were the days of "Rambo: First Blood Part II," and we very much wanted to be John Rambo. But you can't be John Rambo with a silly helmet on. Your hair had to flow in the breeze. Your head had to be adorned with a red bandanna soaking up the dirt and sweat that naturally gathers on the head of a couple of dudes out hitting the trails. 

About 30 minutes into our ride, after we'd scaled sand dunes, splashed through rivers and climbed rock-studded hills, we were heading down a straight-away. The narrow path was well worn, but the grass flanking the path was tall, tall enough to cover anything that might prove dangerous. I saw the stump, but not before it was too late. My right rear wheel hit it hard, the trike rolled, and I went flying roughly 30 feet through the air. Helmetless. When I came to, I felt sharp pains in my foot and head. There was blood on the ground, and I couldn't really move my leg. 

Through tears, I could see my buddy approaching fast, along with a pair of strangers. At that point in my life, I hadn't met many Native Americans. But I knew enough to know what these gentlemen were. They'd seen my body get catapulted. They knew it could have been bad. So they did what any decent person would do: They stopped to help. Good thing, too. There was no way I was riding my vehicle home. It was a wreck. So was I. These guys gave me a lift. 

When we pulled up, my mom, of course, freaked. She got some towels and ice and cleaned the blood off my face and put ice on my foot. She decided we needed to head to the emergency room at the Webster, Wis., hospital. My dad, however, had been talking to the Native American men, although I didn't hear what he was saying. I figured it out a few minutes after we left, when, instead of racing right to the hospital, we stopped at the bar. I thought my dad might have been grabbing a few for the road when he went into Roamers Inn with our new Native American friends -- wouldn't have been the first time he made that kind of pit stop. 

But when he emerged a minute later with the men, and he was apologizing to them, we were all confused. Turns out, Dad just wanted to say thanks the best way he knew how, by buying them a beer. But the bar wouldn't serve them. The bartender, seeing who Bob had brought in with him, just said, "No." So my dad, even with a son in pain in the back seat, snuck back in to buy them a case of off-sale. Then we were off to Webster for 10 stitches to the head and a cast on my foot.

 I learned a lot that day.

 *** 

Eventually, at some point, to every parent, this realization hits you: You may not be a failure as a parent, but there will definitely be failures. Sometimes big ones. Sometimes you survive by dumb luck. And sometimes a stroke of unbearably bad luck can bring so much pain it can change your life. I read an amazing piece the other day from the Washington Post. It dealt with that phenomenon that we hear about from time to time where a mom or dad, who are too busy thinking about their day or their schedule or appointments, forgets they've got a child in the back seat and ... well, by the time they realize their mistake, it's too late. And they must live with it for the rest of their lives. 

Some people look at that and think, "They deserve to go to jail! How could any parent possibly forget their child?!" I don't. I sit there and think, "Dear God, thanks for letting me get through the car seat years without forgetting my child, because there's no way I could survive that kind of pain and guilt." 

My daughter and I were talking about dance the other day. Know what I'm talking about? The kind where girls purchase expensive outfits and learn cute little dances and, as they get older, they learn more complicated dances and wear even more expensive outfits. Not my thing. And not my daughter's thing. ... Or so I thought. I thought she was just not that kind of girl. I thought she was more about acting or music. 

And then the other day she asks, "Why didn't you ever let me do dance?" I chuckled, waiting for her to say, "Ha, just kidding." But it never came. She was serious, and the look in her eye, while it wasn't accusatory, definitely had a sadness of a kid who really wanted something but never got it. "Sweetie," I said, "I'm ... I'm so sorry. I didn't know." 

"It's OK,” she said, sensing my growing concern that I'd let her down. "Dad, really. It's fine."

 I choked up a little later on, because I knew that, while it actually was OK -- she's not going to live in a state of sadness because she didn't get to do dance -- we'd missed that one. Somewhere along the line, in the rhythm of our family life and the expectations of what we want our kids to be, we missed the fact that Emma wanted to be a dancer. And by now, it's too late. Could she take a dance class? Sure. Is she willing to enroll at age 14 and start from square one? No. And what girl would? Fail. 

Beyond the mental and emotional mistakes, there are the physical ones. When Emma was in second grade, she accompanied my wife and I to her brother's day care center for his conference. In the gymnasium prior to the conference, we were playing basketball on hoops that were much lower than a regulation hoop, low enough, in fact, that if I put my little girl on my shoulders, she could probably dunk it. So I grabbed her around the waist and hoisted her up. Except, instead of landing on my shoulders, she sailed clear over my head and landed on the concrete floor with a thud. 

Suck it up, we told her. And as we listened to Sam's teacher tell us what a wonderful little boy he was, Emma was in the corner, crying, trying to color a picture. With her arm swelling and her face on permanent frown, we took her to Urgent Care where, of course, they told us her arm was broken at the wrist. She spent the next six weeks learning to write left-handed and not participating much in phy-ed. We still have her pink cast somewhere. Fail.

 Mistakes are made. By ALL parents. The key, I think, is recognizing that we have faults. And when I think back to my dad and all the things that made him imperfect -- the drinking, smoking a couple of packs of Winstons per day, bologna and butter sandwiches for lunch -- I have to say the man did far, far more good for me than bad. Though I didn't realize it at the time, my dad taught me a lesson that, by the time your kids are a little bit older, you realize is truer than the clich... it's become: 90 percent of parenting is just showing up. 

My dad showed up. He may have been drunk half the time, but he was there. He taught me the value of being a decent human being, of being polite, of holding the door for a woman, of waiting a little on that curveball. He taught me the beauty of Ray Charles and how to nurse a campfire back to life. He taught me to remain a kid, no matter how old you are. He taught me compassion. 

When Emma was in 5th grade at Monroe Elementary in Mrs. Levandowski's class, she wrote this for a class assignment:

 "If I could talk to anyone from the past it would be my grandpa Bob. Grandpa Bob is my dad's dad. I would choose him because the only time I ever saw him was when I was a really little baby, and I don't remember him. If I could, I would want my dad to be there because I know how much he misses his dad. Here's what I would do. First, I would give him a big hug. Then I would have him sign a piece of paper for me. After that, I would have him tell me everything about himself, and I would write it down. I would probably make him a card, write him a letter and give him a picture of me with my family. I would have all these things ready before I talked to him. After I give him those things, I would tell him everything about myself and show him my little beagle puppy, Henry, and my mouse, Cheezarina Velveeta. "I really do wish I could talk to my Grandpa Bob. I wish he was alive. So if I could talk to him, that is what I would do.” 

Mission accomplished.