Magic and Drudgery
Today is Father’s Day — my 13th as a fatherless daughter. The last Father’s Day my father was alive was in 2011, when my son, his first grandson, was 6 months old.
In my last Father’s Day card to him, I wrote how thrilled I was that my son had inherited his eyes and that I hoped my son would look at the world as he always had — with kindness, openness and wonder. Little did I know the weight those words would come to carry, losing my father almost exactly 5 months later.
Despite the number of years that have elapsed since my father’s death, I miss him deeply. I miss him even more so on special occasions like today. I think of what was lost and what could have been. But, I also celebrate the gift it is to be his daughter and to carry on his legacy through my son.
My family has a collection of Brief Life Stories of my father’s, which are a series of essays he wrote about pivotal, poignant and mundane moments in his life. Whenever I read them, my father is brought back to me and I am reminded of the incredible person he was.
One of those essays was entitled Fatherhood. To have my father’s own reflections on becoming and being a father is an invaluable, precious gift. My father always told my older brother and me that parenthood was a mixture of “magic and drudgery,” as well as “the toughest job you’ll ever love.” I never understood the profundity of either statement until I became a mother.
On this 13th Father’s Day without my father, I have chosen to share some of his reflections on fatherhood, written in 1997. Reading his words, so many years since he left this world, is an affirmation that our dead are only gone if they are forgotten. My father is remembered.
“I was raised an only child, far away from extended family, so as a child and teenager, had almost no experience with small children, and I have never been, nor am I now very “good” with children. So you can imagine that when we first started to think about having a child, I was scared. I wanted to be a father, but I was very scared that I would not be a good one.”
“In August 1971, our first child was born in the maternity hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador. When I saw him come out, and when the doctor held him up and showed him to me, I felt a thrill unlike anything I had ever experienced.”
“I remember carrying our tiny baby (only 5 lbs., 14 ounces at birth), into the house and placing him gently on the bed next to his grandfather. I was fascinated that I had half the responsibility for having created this perfect little human being.”
“Some evenings I would bathe and put the baby to bed. I would gently rock him and sing whatever song I could remember the words to. My fears of not being a good father evaporated, as I took to this new role with great enthusiasm.”
“Our daughter was born in La Paz, Bolivia in 1978. Strangely enough, Naomi spent her first year in Latin America, just as her brother had.”
“I had wonderful times carrying her around on my back in Bolivia, and experiencing the joy of having a daughter.”
“After that spectacular start on fatherhood in Ecuador, I continued a routine of deep involvement with both my children. Being with my children seemed so natural and so satisfying.”
“Like any parent, I can remember times of real sacrifice when I was awakened at 3:00 AM by a vomiting child, and after a couple hours of taking care of him, falling asleep for what seemed like only minutes and then off to work. But mostly for me being a father was not a sacrifice. It was more like a thrill.”
“I would say that raising these two children, and participating in the raising of our nephew, are by far the most productive and satisfying things I have done in my life.”
“I am sometimes very nostalgic for the days when they were younger, but I am learning to enjoy the special joys of relating to adult children who still love you. I look forward to being a grandfather with great anticipation!”
These passages are a gem. The last one always pierces my heart, as my father only enjoyed being a grandfather for less than a year. But he did live to become a grandfather, and I will always treasure the almost year he had with his first grandson.
Despite my father’s physical absence, my son has a deep understanding of who his grandfather was and refers to him as Abo. As a toddler, he could not pronounce Abuelita and renamed my mother Aba, so I decided my father would be Abo. His Abo is alive in him.
My father may have returned to stardust over a decade ago, but in our breath, in our stories, in my writing, in images and in his own words, he remains.
Happy Father’s Day, Daddy. Thank you for being ours.
