Father’s Day is Bittersweet

I have exactly six memories of my father, just flashes, really…

1. This is my first memory–I must have been two or three: There is a mouse in the basement, and my father is going to shoot it with (it must be) a shotgun. I am screaming, “Don’t shoot the mouse, Daddy! Don’t shoot the mouse!” My mother is holding me back. He aims down the stairwell, and BAM! I am devastated and furious.
2. It is a year or two later, and my mother and I have moved out of the house and in with my grandparents. I am visiting my father, sitting on his bed in my aunt Babe’s house. He is sliding the needle of a syringe into his arm. I don’t know what diabetes is yet, but this fascinates me. When he’s done, he rolls a cigarette.
3. On another visit, he has a pack of Camels rolled into the sleeve of his shirt. We are in his car in Babe’s dirt yard. I can see the red barn across the yard, and the little house where my bachelor uncle Lynn lives. I stand on the seat next to my father. There are no car seats or seat belts because it is 1950. He makes a U-turn in the yard, holding a doorknob attached to the steering wheel.
4. I visit my father at his new place, an old railroad dining car behind the restaurant where my mother works. He takes me to an auto repair shop where he works. It smells of oil and grease.
5. He carries me into the tavern next door and introduces me to his friends. The place smells of stale beer and cigarettes. They call me Blondie, and my father sits me on the bar. One of the men says that I will grow up to break hearts. I love the attention.
6. My mother and I visit my father in the hospital, but I am not allowed upstairs because I am too young. I wait in the lobby and she brings him down to see me in a wheelchair. He smiles at me and gives me a jar of pennies, which is very heavy. He says it holds three dollars’ worth, more money than I can imagine.
7. Oh, yes — one more memory: we are standing in front of my father’s casket, looking at him. I can hear my aunt Babe sobbing loudly in the background. His face is powdered and rouged, which makes him look like a big doll. I want to lean over and kiss his cheek but my mother won’t let me. She seems embarrassed.

He died very young, barely into his 30s, and I was too young myself to understand what death meant so I never truly grieved. Decades later, when I was visiting Aunt Babe, she showed me her photo album and I saw this snapshot for the first time:

I cried when I saw it, because it shows what I never felt from those few memories — that my father cared for me, enough to take a nap with me on a warm summer day.