Did You See That?

A man deals with the unexpected death of his estranged father.

 

Did You See That?

    You know its funny how quickly things change in your life.  I mean, there I was spending another weekend at home watching ball games and unwinding.  My son Kenny, was outside playing with his best friend and making as much noise as is humanly possible.  I was about to fix what was probably my fourth peanut butter and jelly sandwich of the day.  I think somewhere in the universal bachelor's handbook on fine dining PB & J is the delicacy of choice.  Just as I lifted myself from the couch the phone rang.  I checked my caller ID and saw it was my mother.  Snatching up the phone I eagerly answered.

    "Hey Mama!  How you doing?"  I said, knowing what her response would be.

    "How’d you know it was me?"   I waited.  "Oh, I keep forgetting you have that caller ID thing don't you?" 

I walked on into the kitchen and started gathering up my sandwich supplies.

    "How's my grandson doing?”   

    "He's alright” I answered freeing up two slices of bread and putting the loaf away.  "He's just outside playin'.  You wanna' talk to'im?"

    "No" she said hastily.  "I mean, in a minute I wanted to talk to you first."

I paused for a moment.  My mother not making it a priority to talk to her oldest grandson within 60 seconds of calling was definitely out of character.  As a matter of fact, I thought I'd have a little fun with it.

    "I can't believe this"  I said scooping out a generous portion of peanut butter and spreading it on one of the slices of bread.  "You're actually going to talk to me first?  I better mark this down on the calendar."

    "You need to quit"  she chuckled.  I love the way mother laughs.  It's like the humor she's feeling just spills out and causes you to want to laugh right along with her. 

    "To hear you all tell it I never showed any affection at all."  She was referring to my other brothers and sisters.  Six of us all together.  Three boys and three girls just like the Brady Bunch with me coming at the end.

    "Who ever said that?"  I asked finishing up with the peanut butter and getting ready to open up the jelly.  "You gave us bread and water every other day and those chicken bones on Sunday always made my week."  I was already smiling.

    "Boy, you ain't got no sense at all."   She said laughing out loud.  "I can't imagine how I ever raised such a crazy child."

    "So what do you want to talk about?"  I was just about finished when I heard a loud thump against the door. 

    "Kenny!"  I yelled instinctively. 

    "Sorry Dad!"  My son's voice called back on cue.

    "What happened?"  My mother asked as I finished with the jelly and dropped the spoon into the sink.  After licking off the jelly of course.  Good thing she wasn't there to see me do that.

    "Nothing.  They just hit the door with the ball again."  I answered putting the jelly away and grabbing a bottle of juice out of the fridge.

    "So" I said picking up the sandwich and heading back to the living room shaking the bottle, "what's going on?"  I started flipping the channels on the television looking for something good.  All my teams were already done playing so I was looking for anything remotely interesting to look at.  It must have been about a solid minute before I realized she hadn't answered me yet.  I was so engrossed with what I was doing I had even taken a bite of the sandwich.  I quickly chewed it up and swallowed.

    "Mama?"  I said not hearing anything.  "You still there?" 

I was about to say it again when she finally answered.

    "Carl's dead."

Now it was my turn to be silent.

    "Did you hear what I said?"  she asked. 

    "Yes ma'am" I said.  "I heard you."

    "Well" she continued, "they found him in his hospital bed yesterday.  He must've gone in his sleep."

    "Hmm" I grunted in reply.  "How is Gary taking it?" 

Gary was my oldest brother.  He had lived with my father off and on from the time he'd moved from Georgia to Trenton until now.  The rest of us hadn't seen or heard from our father in years.  For me personally it had been 23.  The last and only time being when I was eight.  My mother had gone to Trenton in a vain attempt to try and get some type of  monetary assistance from him to help raise his children.  To this day I don't know why she took me with her.  I mean, I've always had a good relationship with her but I was never a "mama's boy" and she wasn't the type to keep any of us too close to her to the point we were overly dependent.  In any event, she took me with her and I finally got to see the person I'd heard people talking about, oftentimes in hushed whispers or coded conversations for my entire life.  Up until that trip he'd just been a name and a picture in the bookcase.  We didn't even call him daddy, just Carl because that's how our mother referred to him whenever she spoke about him, which wasn't very often.  I think it was during that trip that I first started to despise my father.  Not because he had been mean to me or anything.  In fact, when he saw me he called me over and hugged and kissed me while I squirmed and pulled away like any kid would do with a stranger.  What I remembered most however, was how my mother acted.  We were staying with relatives and she had been caught off-guard by his visit.  She'd stood in the kitchen doorway holding a broom like it was a baseball bat.  Even at that young age I knew it was for protection.  That was the first and only time I'd ever seen my mother look afraid.  That's what I disliked.  The realization he'd done something before to evoke that look in her.

    "He's alright" she said pulling me from my thoughts.  "He hadn't really lived with him in years and you know Carl.  He wasn't one to go out of his way to track you down if you weren't right there."

I laughed.  No kidding.  During my entire childhood my father never called our house or wrote even though we lived in the same place from the time he left until I graduated high school.

    "Uh, Gary wants to know if you're going to go up there to the funeral." 

    "What?"  I asked.  "Why would he think any of us would want to go?"

    "Junior's going" she said.  "And your sisters are thinking about going too."

I couldn't believe it.  Why would they even consider it?  As much as I'd heard them run him down when we were kids.  As a matter of fact, whenever anyone who didn't know our family asked about our father we all said the same thing, "My daddy's dead."  So hearing this latest bit of news I was, to say the least, surprised.

    "Yeah" my mother said reading my mind, "I can't believe it either."

    "So you're not going?"

    "What?" she quipped.  "That's your daddy not mine."

    "He was your husband."  I countered unable to think of anything else.  To tell the truth I'd known what her answer was going to be but in light of recent revelations I figured I ought to ask.

    "Was baby.  Was.  And that was almost 30 years ago."  She got quiet again.  "So…you going or not?  Gary wants to know so he can finalize the arrangements.”

I took a deep breath.  Gary and I had always been close but when it came to our father we were worlds apart.  To him he was a good guy, a hero the way a father should be to his son.  To me he was a non-entity.  As a child he’d been a point of shame and the personification of everything I perceived to negative in a man.  An alcoholic, womanizing, weak-willed and selfish man who ran out on his family as soon as the opportunity came.

    “He’s going to be disappointed if you say no.," she said. 

I took a deep breath and thought for a moment. 

    “What do you think I should do?”  It was the first time I’d asked my mother her opinion on any decision I’d made since I’d become a man.  “You think I should go?”

    “Do you really want to know?”  She asked quietly.  “Because if you want me to I’ll tell you what I think.  But only if that’s really what you want.”

    “Yes ma’am” I said.  “I want to know what you think.”

I could hear my mother take a deep breath before answering.  She’d been expecting this I guess, maybe even for years anticipating my trying to gain some insight into her feelings about my father.  I mean, who better to ask than the person whom I felt had been wronged the most?

    “I think,” she started slowly, “that you have some serious issues regarding your father.  I think that nothing I say is going to really change that because you’re a man whose life is the exact opposite of what his was.  He got divorced and left his children.  You got divorced and are raising your child.”  She paused for a bit before continuing on. “You only know the bad things about him and I know it’s hard for you to believe he was anything other than that.  But let me tell you son, he wasn’t a bad man.  He was weak and had some bad habits but he wasn’t a bad man.”

She stopped for a moment and I was about to say something but thought better of it.

    “I always felt bad about your not getting a chance to know your daddy.  I mean I could have told you all more about him, especially you since you were the youngest.  Maybe I should have but it was too much of a reminder of what I was trying to forget.  But what I didn’t want to do was be the reason you disliked him.”  She laughed dryly.  “Don’t think I could have talked about him for too long without my feelings getting in the way.”

    “And what are those feelings Mama?  I mean…did you hate him?”

She was quiet for a long time before saying, “That’s for me to know son.  I know that’s not what you want to hear but it’s all I can say.  That’s just between him and me  just like what you feel is between you and him.  What I feel isn’t what’s important here.  It’s what you feel that matters and no matter what you may think nothing I can say will really help you decide how it is you feel.”

    “Why do you say that?”  I asked.  “Of course what you say is going to matter.”

    “Well it shouldn’t.”  She said firmly.  “See baby, the difference is I loved him.  It was a long time ago but I did love him.  Once you love someone a piece of you is always with them.  You never knew the man.  I can’t imagine how it must feel to be expected to have feelings for someone who was never a part of your life.  So you see, nothing I say can help because I don’t know what to say.”

    “Okay” I relented.  “Let me think about it.”

    “Alright” she said.  “Just let me know something by Monday so he’ll be able to make arrangements for you with the rest of the family.  They have the funeral scheduled for Thursday in Trenton.”  Her voice brightened, “ Now, let me talk to my grandson.”

I called my son in and gave him the phone then went to my room and sat down on the bed.  It was hard for me to admit but I’d always figured the time would eventually come when I would face my father and ask him all the questions that had plagued me for as long as I could remember.  Why had he treated my mother so badly?  Why had he just left?  Why didn’t he ever call or visit?  Why had I been forced to learn on my own a multitude of things he should have been there to teach me?  Why had he not helped us? Ultimately, why had he just allowed himself to vanish from our lives?  I heard my son tell my mother goodbye, hang the phone up and run back outside the door slamming it shut.

I lay back on the bed and looked up at the ceiling and sighed.  None of those questions would ever be answered now.  Carl had taken any apologies or explanations I felt he owed me to his grave.  It was at that moment I realized what I truly felt for him wasn’t hate  -- it was resentment.  Resentment for not having been allowed the opportunity to feel something for him.  I looked through the window at my son playing catch with his friend.   I thought of myself at hit age and how I’d missed the attention a boy craves from his father.  How I’d learned all the lessons it would have been his responsibility to teach me on my own and suffered the consequences of not knowing what he should have been there to teach.  For better or worse I was who I was and my father was who he had been.  No amount of soul searching was going to change that.  All I could do was be certain I didn’t make the mistakes he had and that my son never had to feel the emptiness I was feeling.  I had to be certain I was a better man.  I got up and dialed my mother’s number.

    “Hello.”

    “Hey, Mama.  It’s me.”

    “Hey.”

    “I’m not going.”  I heard myself say.  “Tell Gary we can talk about it if he wants but I’m not changing my mind.”

    “Don’t worry about that,” She said.  “Baby?”

    “Yes ma’am?”

    “I love you.”

I smiled.  “I know Mama.  I know.”

    Afterwards I went out into the yard where my son and his friend were still playing.  As soon as he saw me he threw the ball my way, just like I’d shown him.

    “Throw me one Dad!”  He said running away from me, his friend Anthony in close pursuit.

I threw him a long wobbly pass he bobbled momentarily before pulling securely to his chest.

    “Woo hoo!” he said doing a little dance and spiking the ball.

I stood there in awe of his youthful exuberance and promise.

    “Did you see that?” he yelled, picking up the ball and running back toward me. 

    “Dad, did you see it?”

I nodded, fighting back tears I didn’t know were so close to spilling out.

    “Yea man,” I said. “I saw it.”