esrosedotblog

DAD

Father's Day tomorrow. I am thinking of my Dad again today. He would be--whew--96! 1908. He was a great Dad. I did not say perfect, but great. We had a long struggle. The one you are supposed to have for full emergence as a man; your self. We had some extra stuff over me being gay but that did not last long. He gave me the greatest gift when he got comfortable with me, my partner, and the fact that I was happy. He told me so before he left. What a gift. To hear from your Dad that he thinks you are OK and that he loves you.

A lot of damage is done by other combinations, as in "I love you but I do not like what you are doing" or "who you are" or "how you are living your life". I ended up getting accepted unconditionally. What a big deal that is!

Of course, I had to work for it; both with him and on my own. I had to attract him to my life, to understand it, to be open and above board—honest—with him. We cannot expect loved ones to accept us and give us the nod unless we do it with them and also are as honest as we can be without being hurtful. I actually never saw a lot of it as his job. At the end, of course, he is the one who has to take the final step and embrace the son with forgiving love. And the son must return forgiving love. We both did that. It is a nice labor of love, sons and dads.

I am holding his wallet now and looking at the pictures; the drivers license, the SS card; the card he got to qualify him as a golden ager so he could get the discounts. We both belong to the same clubs: there is the AAA card and the AARP! I remember the relish with which he bought me my first AARP membership when I hit fifty. It was a joke but also a statement. We had both lived long enough to get 'there'. Nice.

There is a one dollar bill in the wallet. It is HAWAII script handed out at the end of WWII on the event of his discharge from the Navy. It has all the names of his shipmates. The War--the only one he acknowledged--was a big deal for him. When they had the War Memorial and the D-Day stuff recently, I saw proud ancient sailors who could be my Dad. In a way there were him. Living symbols of a different time when we could be proud of our country's role in the world. Perhaps that time can come again. He would hate what is happening now.