Yesterday was Dad’s birthday. Made me start thinking. He’s seemed so unhappy since he retired a few years ago.
There are a couple of very specific memories I have of Dad that helped solidify my perception of what a father and husband does. It’s tough now, to see him “falling from grace” and letting the depression of retirement consume him.
Every family has it’s feuds. Our family is no different. One memory that showed me the amazing character that my father possesses was at a family event that sparked a feud.
It was spring of 1980 and we were at my paternal grandparent’s house. There are a lot of aunt and uncles, cousins, great aunts, great uncles, so on and so forth. This event was a baby shower, I believe, for my Uncle’s 1st child, whatever it was, there were a lot of us there. We are also the type of family where we disciplined the younger kids (within reason!).
I was 7 years old at the time and I have a cousin that was 1 month and 1 day younger than me. Any time that we went to Gramma’s, she would call our cousin’s mom and have him come over. He was a terror. Gramma wasn’t much nicer.
On this occasion, my cousin had come in from outside with muddy feet and placed them on the chair. My Mom tapped his foot and said, “put your foot down.” Before she got the last word out, my cousin’s mother (she never married my uncle), swung at my Mom. Her talons were so long and she got so close to Mom’s face, that she caught her contact lens. Mom is taller than this woman, but didn’t (and still doesn’t) know how to fight. She simply grabbed the woman’s hair & held her at arms length while the woman scratched & clawed @ Mom.
Someone ran outside to get the men. I was watching from the pass-through in the next room. When the uncles ran in and grabbed the woman, she turned on them until she realized they were each 2X her size. She then relaxed and cried while they had her restrained.
Everyone was frozen with shock. Gramma was the 1st to react. She went to the woman and started to console her. WHAT? Mom was sitting there bleeding through her clothes from this woman’s attack and she’s consoling the attacker?! That’s my Gramma…
I ran into the back room, buried my face, and cried. One of my uncles came to get me. I walked into the kitchen to help find Mom’s contact and to see and hear my Dad standing there pointing at my Gramma and saying, “We will not step foot in this house again until you apologize to my wife and my children.”
There were only a couple of people that followed us out of the house. Gramma was kind of scary and no one really wanted to “cross” her. One person that wasn’t worried about it was Gramma’s brother. The uncles helped get us all in the car.
Dad was true to his word. We didn’t see many of them for a long time and even when we did start to see them again, it was never quite the same. But, the thing that sticks with me is how Dad put his (immediate) family first and he never mentioned himself. Wish he would remember that passion and love now. It’s got to still be there, right?