Three Belated Father and Son Reunions

A true heartfelt story from a couple years back

 

 

Three Belated Father and Son Reunions

 

 

            The muted overhead lights brightened in Whitman Commons Hall on Northern Michigan University’s campus. I glanced over the four skewed and barely legible pages I had scribbled in the dusky darkness during the screening of Doe Boy.  The movie depicted a strained father and son relationship tainted with intimidation and hostility until a belated and reconciling reunion was followed with death’s bereavement. I soaked up the fresh illumination while pondering the movie for my assigned review.  I felt cool, analytical, and impassive; the hall’s air conditioning was as cold as my heart. My fellow college classmates, all much younger than I, stood up and shuffled out with a few watery eyes in sight.   

The sun’s radiance bore deep into my eyes as I stepped off the curb and out from the Common’s shadow. I squinted obstinately. My eyes welled from the sun’s onslaught, and I knuckled out the see-water while walking to my car. Unlocking and throwing open my little black car’s door, the heat billowed out and swirled past my body. Getting in, I punched the radio to the university’s radio station just as the DJ announced her last song: “I Want to Break Free.” The title hovered in my forebrain like a surreal audio billboard.

 

Later that summer my father died. I suppose we all lose our fathers sooner or later provided, of course, we progeny don’t encounter an earlier demise; that’s how I perceived it�"rather coolly, analytically. My father’s death was not a surprise because his battle with cancer had been yearlong, though I hadn’t found the motive to even try and visit him in his final days. The last time I saw him was the summer of 2000. In contrast to Doe Boy’s, I can report that our last reunion wasn’t a particularly heartwarming event.

I met my father and his lady friend in Jack’s Grocery parking lot. Unlike Doe Boy’s father and son reunion when the protagonist last saw his father alive, my own reunion was entirely reticent. We shook hands as always, a polite greeting despite our extended separation, the sparse phone calls, and intermittent correspondence. Our previous meeting was in 1995 when I was living with my young family in Holloman, New Mexico. My father and I were following the basic five-year reunion schedule.

            My mother wasn’t doing well even as early as then in 1995, and she passed away with a heart condition in 1998. For a certain degree of self-comfort, I convinced myself that I loved my mother which is the respectful avowal for the woman who gave me life and hadn’t done or said a negative thing in her life. I made it known to all she died during the busiest time in my life�"how inconvenient; however true, it was a flimsy excuse.  Nonetheless, I had two months left in the Air Force, I had people in my charge deploying, the house was closing, and we were packing to move. All this occurred in Alaska far on the other side of the continent from my parents’ New York. I should have gone, but�"but�"I didn’t even for her. Maybe I conceded it was too late to say the essential words to her, mend ways with my father, and warm my heart that had cooled over the ensuing years.

           

            Doe Boy and his father had that stirring cinematic last meeting, the belated reconciliation my classmates perhaps hoped for after an uneasy and often volatile relationship between half-breed son and white father. From well before that point in the movie, we should have realized one of them was not going to be around much longer and seeing the movie was about Doe Boy and filmed from his perspective�"well, we saw it coming and figured who was to suffer their demise. In relative terms, my paternal relationship wasn’t nearly as strained as Doe Boy’s, for it wasn’t as bad, but it couldn’t be described as good either. It is still hard to express in words really, it just wasn’t much of a father-son relationship.  

            Like Doe Boy’s father, my father was an avid hunter and hunted often while I was in my teens. Sure, I was old enough to hunt, but I imagine I never showed interest because my father never asked me to go along. He also never beat me into submission, hit me, or put me in my place for anything. Some people might say that they wished they had grown up in a family environment like mine. Well, they wouldn’t have liked the barren relationship; there were no sore behinds, but the relationship lacked hugs too. I could have gone wild but instead habitually employed taciturn gloom as a means to gain a little attention.  

            My sisters said I ran away. Often in family situations like Doe Boy depicted children run away from difficult family situations as soon as possible, but I didn’t because my situation wasn’t all that difficult. I ran hard in fast cars, but I always went back to the family farmhouse. I didn’t leave, really left, that house until I was twenty-two. That’s what my sisters referred to�"I left for the Air Force on the first four-year commitment. Repeatedly, well after the first four years and subsequent reenlistments, my mother and father asked when I was coming home, but I’d tell them, no matter the circumstances or where I was in the States or Overseas, that I was home and not going back to where I had grown up. Besides, I had married and had a wife and son to provide for. My sisters and I didn’t correspond very much over those ensuing years with my moving to various locations every few years, but during my father’s last days they kept me closely appraised. 

            Was I coming back to see him? My older sister had; she traveled from Florida. He’s not doing well; the doctor is giving him only a couple weeks, they informed me several times. My excuses this time were summer semester classes and money was tight; the VA paid part tuition and would want their money back for the uncompleted courses�"how inconvenient.

            I called my rapidly failing father in the Buffalo Hospice. Despite heavy painkillers, he was pretty coherent but was emotionally concerned about his brand new Impala. What’s going to happen to my car and house? He asked sobbing. I told him my younger sister had everything taken care of. He told me that my cousin visited him every night, and they sat and talked for hours. I said that was nice of her. The nurses loved his stories. I didn’t remember any stories. He played his harmonica. The food was great. He broke the conversation short. I’ll see you soon�"Click. He didn’t see me soon. He died two days later, well before the doctors said he would. I finished summer classes that week�"how convenient.

            I went to the funeral at my sisters’ insistence to at least visit and to reconnect with family. Yes I went, but I didn’t go home; I left home to go. I didn’t recognize the man in the coffin for it had been a long time. Of course, my sister said, the body didn’t look like him due to the cancer wrecking his once healthy body. There was a packet of morning glory seeds peeking from his suit pocket. Blue were his favorite, my brother-in-law told me. I didn’t know that, I replied aside. My cheeks burned; I didn’t recognize the emotion I suffered. His harmonica was in his hand. I don’t remember him playing it, but everyone said he was quite talented with old songs like “Amazing Grace.” The funeral went smoothly and mainly unemotional on my part�"mainly. Our remaining family did reconnect, but it sure wasn’t much of a father-son reunion.

 

            My son Benjamin was moving from Anchorage to Fairbanks that week for a new job, so he bowed out of attending the funeral. He had already purchased tickets to visit his mom and me in Upper Michigan the following month. I didn’t slip up about coming home because our home there was never his, though he had many true and happy homes with us around the country and world as he grew up as a military brat.

            I met Benjamin at K.I. Sawyer Airport, hugged the heck out of him and told him how proud I was of him and his successes. He grinned and said he already knew. He and I remembered him as an eight-year old climbing into the cockpit of an F-15 fighter plane not far down the tarmac from the airport terminal. We recalled skiing, biking, and building things together. Out of sight, I knuckled out tears several times during his visit, especially when he departed. I hugged him and told him I loved him after neglecting to tell him for so long. He said he loved me too. I wondered afterwards if he’d ever come and live close to his mom and me. He has since discussed moving from Alaska but not to anywhere near us�"it isn’t home to him.

Maybe his living apart from us is due to his growing up as a mobile Air Force brat and not in a long-established home like his grandfather, or maybe it is the learned sense of mobility from me. I only wanted to break free, though now these days as the icy memories melt away my heart is staying closer to home and growing a little bit warmer after three belated father and son reunions.

Reviews

[wondering]

grabbed me from the beginning. true stories often do. regrets? will you make sure you do not allow your own son to lose touch with you, and what a bout your grandson. Is it repeatable, or repairable.
Good story, thanks for sharing