Daddy

I found this gift tag the other day when I was cleaning my room:

I must have saved it from last Christmas. I like it because even though it says "From MOMMY," it's obviously written in my dad's handwriting.

My father has had a difficult year. I've heard hardly anything about it because he isn't around much and doesn't talk to me much, but apparently, in preparation for retirement, he's sold his business to the company he consults for, and for the first time in over 20 years, he isn't his own boss anymore. Also, his health hasn't been very good this past decade or so. He almost died of some heart problems when I was in college, but my parents decided not to tell me about that until I got home for summer break--they didn't want to distract me from my all-important studies in architecture school--that my dad had talked me into. (I ended up adding an English major and leaving architecture early with a non-professional degree--and I didn't tell them about that until I got home for summer break.)

After college, even though I'd wanted to go far, far away, to Tasmania even--I looked into it!-- I ended up having to move home because I was so sick from the stress of school. Somehow (meaning from my dad) I'd been convinced as early as Kindergarten that if I front-loaded all my efforts, doing my absolute best in school, that afterwards everything would fall in place, and adult life would be nothing but smooth sailing. Instead I discovered after a few years of college that other students--students smarter, better, more creative, more studious, more enthusiastic, and better-connected than I was--were having difficulty finding jobs with architecture firms. The tiny threads that had been holding me together, getting me through the awful days snapped all at once. 

It was another year before I graduated, and I scraped along, barely holding my mind and body together as I worked at a daycare while finishing my English degree and one last credit for a Bachelor of Science in Architecture degree, so that I earned two degrees in just four years. When I moved home that summer, I made a project of trying to get my health back together. I went to several doctors. I tried to eat healthy food even though my parents' fridge and pantry were crammed with ice cream, bagels, economy-sized blocks of cheese, soda--all the things that had made me a fat, miserable teenager. My parents followed my lead to an extent, eating healthier and allowing me to cook them the occasional vegetarian meal. I also started going for two-mile morning walks with my dad, where we would talk about all kinds of stuff. I got to understand him so much better and not be as angry with him for the way he'd always treated me, all the pressure and criticism he'd put me under. He'd thought it would make me a tough, responsible adult, not the broken, useless, terrified mess I actually became.

I learned that my dad was proud to be the owner of a small business. He explained that by doing the work he did (which I found crushingly dull), he supported three families: his own, plus the young families of his two employees. He also genuinely enjoyed most of the work, which consisted of writing software and designing technical equipment. The thing I most appreciate about his work is that over the years, he has become more knowledgeable about the company he consults for and the products it builds than anyone who actually works at the company! That's why they have to keep him on as an employee for a while as they train multiple people to do the work he's been doing for the last two decades.

All my life I've hated my dad's work, though. Why can't Daddy play with us this weekend? Because he had to go to work. Why is no one home at 9:00 PM for dinner? Because Mommy and Daddy had to go to work (my mom worked as his secretary and janitor for about ten years). It's no secret in that my dad escapes the house by going to work. Even this year, when his new bosses tried to get him to work from home, he flat out refused. He's started a million renovation projects around the house, but when they get too difficult, he's suddenly "too busy" to finish them, but won't let my mom hire anyone else to do it. The house has always been a mess.

This is why I treasured our vacations so much. Just about every other summer, Daddy would take us somewhere beautiful (and not as hot as Dallas): Nova Scotia, Colorado, rural England, Hawaii. We stayed in relatively inexpensive places, but they were always more comfortable than home, and more importantly, everyone was together. My sister couldn't abandon me to be with her friends, my mom couldn't abandon me to go shopping (and then forget to pick me up from school), and my father couldn't abandon me to go to work (although I do remember a fax machine coming along with us a couple of times). My dad is really good at planning vacations, too. Four times he drove us to Colorado, a couple of them via Santa Fe and Taos; the most recent, via Mesa Verde, and beyond, to Park City, Utah. I have a photo I love of my dad sitting on a mountainside near Aspen. He's wearing the green hat he had to buy there to keep his bald spot from burning, and he's eating a sandwich and smiling. You could put those days in a teacup.

I like to think that that version of my dad--Daddy, I guess--is there always. Somewhere inside the Dad who works too much, the Dad who criticizes too much, the Dad who claims he doesn't have feelings but can poison a whole house with his anger. I'm a big disappointment, but he's learning to be okay with that, just as I'm learning to be okay with him. 

I haven't had a job since I worked at the daycare, but I've been careful not to be a burden on my parents. I have some money from mom's father, who died while I was in college, and with it I pay all my own expenses. Except for my health insurance. My father bought an individual plan for me, $2400 a year. I pay my own co-pays, and since the deductibles are so high, I try not to go to the doctor if I can help it. Still, it's an enormous help. I've offered half a dozen times to take over the payments, but my dad insists. "I'm not doing this for you," he says. "I just don't want you to bankrupt me when you get cancer."

You have to read between the lines a bit, but I think that might be his way of saying he loves me. Somewhere inside that Dad is my Daddy.