I had to face my own demons before I could love him with his

As the languid days of summer gradually gave way to autumn last year, I found myself reflecting on memories of my father, who returned to the spirit realm in 2004. I don’t know why, but I felt the recent anniversary of his birth more keenly than any of the others, and as we moved ever closer to October, I couldn’t help but remember another anniversary — the day I had him committed.

I can still hear him raging in the locked hospital room, his shouts gradually fading as I grew nearer the exit and the car park. Tears burned my eyes, the acid sting of betrayal, of lying in the worst possible way for the best possible reason — to keep him safe.

But he would not — could not — understand.

***

My earliest memories of my dad were only the best. He had a busy job as program manager on a local television station and was also the host of his own show, “The Supper Club,” in which he played the piano and interviewed guests in the entertainment industry. I idolised him. I was adopted but he loved me like I was his own.

In a corner of the living room stood his armchair. Whenever he was in it, I made sure to play on the floor nearby. And then I waited.

“Wanna sit with me?” Decades later, I can still hear his voice, feel the warmth and the smile in his words.

Instantly, I’d scramble into the chair as he made room for me to squeeze in beside him. With his arm around me and my little body gently pressing against his, I was safe. I was happy.

***

I loved watching him on his TV show. I would wave and call, “Hi, Daddy!” But he would never wave back. Deeply disappointed, one day I asked why he did not reply. He assured me that he could see me in the camera, but said that as he was working, he wasn’t allowed to wave back. That made sense. All was right in my world.

Until I was on Romper Room. There I was, at the studio, searching for the camera that would show my living room with my mother watching me on TV. But there was no such camera.

Devastated, I asked him about this when he got home. He said he had a special camera, just for me, and that it was in the studio where his set was. Ah. That explains it. Happy again.

At the age of 4, I could read so when an organ and piano were brought into the house, I spent hours reading the music books and teaching myself to play. I loved it more than anything, in part because I wanted to be like my dad. Sometimes when I was playing, he would come and play along with me, which always brought a rush of warmth and love inside me, a pure connection of hearts and souls, one that needed no words.

***

When I was 8, we moved hundreds of miles away to Calgary. I was devastated to leave my friends, my school, everything familiar. The move was precipitated by a terrific job offer at a popular radio station. It was a job he couldn’t pass up.

But someone had lied. He arrived to discover there was no job. And there were still bills to pay, a mortgage, two kids to support. My mother found full time work and my dad scrambled to find a job but they are hard to come by in broadcasting. No longer providing for his family — and his wife having to step up and do it at a time when this was definitely not the “done thing” — this was a significant and emasculating blow.

Relying on his considerable musical ability, he found occasional contracts in nightclubs and dining rooms, playing music several evenings a week for a few months, sometimes longer. And always, the contracts would end.

My dad attempted to escape his failures by turning to the bottle, but this only made things worse. Suddenly, my warm, smiley Daddy had become sharp and prickly. He stopped having meals at the kitchen table with the rest of us. If he was home, he was parked in his armchair, staring at the TV, but I don’t think he saw it. From across the room, I could feel him seething, anger churning, a volcano about to erupt and spew molten lava at anyone who dared come too close.

I had no idea why everything was so wrong. All I knew was that there were no more armchair cuddles. No more goodnight rituals. No more music with my dad. And I knew I’d better stay the hell away from him.

I didn’t dare bring anyone home from school. If he was there, he was in his underwear, staring at the TV and chain smoking. The house reeked, a thick, grey haze filling every room. And if the house was empty when I arrived home, I knew it wouldn’t be long before he would return with a belly full of beer and a mouth full of venom.

The warm and loving father he had been before we moved was long gone. I felt nothing but embarrassment and disgust for the man he had become. Already feeling like an outcast, I distanced myself from kids at school, fearing someone would find out about my dad.

My brother was usually out with friends when my father would stumble in (quick, before my mother got home from work). He was always looking for a fight. And I was too young to avoid one. He didn’t usually hurt me physically, although there were occasional slaps or a hard shove into a wall or a door frame. But the insults, the sneering, nasty putdowns with his squinty, angry eyes and his horrible, stale beer breath … every vile word sliced through to my soul like a thousand razor blades.

Over the years, my father’s drinking got worse. Working in environments where alcohol was free-flowing, he would stay after his shifts enjoying drinks with customers, the boss, or perhaps the waitresses … stumbling home well after midnight in the early morning hours.

Bang! A fist pounding on the kitchen table, my father shouting, and I am awakened in a panic. My mother shushing him, pleading with him not to wake the children. Too late.

Bang! Another fist on the table, now in a rage at being told what to do. Mother begging him to stop, she has to get up at 6:00 for work. Too bad. Arguing — fighting— about what, I never know, but it is always the same. Cupboard doors slamming, mother crying, father’s wrath spewing and filling every miserable corner of our anger-infused home.

Always, I lie in my bed, shaking so hard my teeth chatter, stomach in knots, having a panic attack although it would be years before I would know that’s what it is. Always, I lie quietly, listening to the violence, feeling the violence, certain — certain — one or both of them will die. Will it be now?

***

The years passed. Nothing changed, except to get worse. By the time I was 14, I hated my father with a passion and had begun to stand up to him. When he was drunk, I would tell him exactly what I thought of him, no longer afraid of what he might do. In fact, I relished the opportunity to fire my own long pent-up anger right back at him. Finally, at 16 I couldn’t stand it any longer. I left home, quit school, and got a job.

***

My life spiraled out of control and by 19, I was a divorced single parent. I was doing battle with anorexia, OCD, agoraphobia, and other issues that caused my parents no end of worry. I muddled through, keeping myself and my daughter fed and in an apartment, but I was a mess.

Eventually, I became pregnant with my second child. The father had vanished (thankfully). I was terribly sick and had to move into my parents’ basement. My father was not impressed. He made it clear he didn’t want me there, disrupting their lives. Couldn’t blame him, really. He didn’t have to say anything but I felt most unwelcome.

He still drank and I still hated it, but as I was living in the basement, I could avoid him. Mostly. Each of us had issues with the other but we tolerated one another, as we didn’t have much choice.

My mother took every opportunity to give me grief about my pregnancy, hoping I would lose the baby or get an abortion. Thoroughly embarrassed, she had been hoping she wouldn’t have to tell anyone about the shame that I had brought upon the family.

When I was 7 months pregnant, I’d got some baby things and was showing my mother what I had bought. She started in on me. “You don’t have to act so happy about it! You should have had an abortion!” And served up several reasons why I should feel nothing but shame. I was in tears.

Suddenly, my dad stormed into the kitchen and barked at her. “Look! She’s going to have a baby! Now, you can make it better, or you can make it worse! What’s it going to be?” He glared at her in silence for several long and terribly uncomfortable seconds before storming off to his chair.

She never said another unkind word on the subject. In fact, she proved to be an excellent labour coach for a woman who had never experienced childbirth herself.

My dad’s outburst seemed to change something in him, too. One day, not long after that incident, I sat down at the piano and began to play. He walked by, and just as he had often done when I was younger, he played a little harmony above my melody, just for a minute or so, as usual. And there it was, that forgotten but familiar rush of love, of connection restored without a word. After that impromptu duet, I never felt unwelcome again.

***

Several years and another divorce later, I was in counseling to try to unravel the mess of my life. As the psychologist and I waded through the mountain of issues, I began to see my father and his drinking in a new light. Idolising him in childhood had not been helpful when his world fell apart. He was just a man, flawed and wounded like everyone else.

Born in the Depression, the middle child of five, he had watched his mother die of cancer when he was 12. War broke out, crushing his dreams of becoming a lawyer. There was no money for that anyway. There were other big dreams, devastating losses, and more than one betrayal in business. Stuffing his anger and disappointment, like many others who came out of the war, drinking was the only way he could cope. The only way he could vent that rage.

I began to understand him and to have compassion for him. And I began remembering the man he had still been through all those terrible years, the one I had forgotten, or perhaps refused to see.

I remembered that when I was 13 and had been knocked unconscious in gym class, he rushed to the school to collect me and was worried sick. I remembered that when I thought I was pregnant at 17 and we were discussing the shotgun wedding plans, my mother was sniping at me. He told her we were “having a wedding, damn it, and it was going to be nice!”

I remembered that he was the only one who had ever said, “I love you” in our home, the only one who said I was beautiful or talented, or that I was so smart I could do or be anything I wanted.

I remembered that in so many moments when I was worried or scared or sick, he would lay his hand against my cheek, look deeply into my eyes with all the love in the world and say, “It’s okay.” And I always believed him.

I remembered him panicking through Monday morning rush hour traffic, desperate to reach my apartment and take me to hospital. I was deathly ill with a fever of 106°.

I remembered that having been in the navy during WWII, he loved being “an old sailor.” He adored the sea, the sky, anything to do with the vast expanse of stars, as any good sailor would do.

I remembered once asking him what he thought happens to us when we die. He said, “We just drift out into the stars.” That sounded pretty good to me.

I remembered him coming apart at the seams during the first moon landing, so close to the TV screen he was practically climbing into it and repeating, “Oh, how I wish I were there!”

I remembered that when I was little, he was often at work when I went to bed, but every now and then, I got the Very Most Special Tucking-In Ritual.

“You know something?” he would say, smiling down at me.

“What?” I always knew the answer, but I had to ask; it was part of the ritual.

“I love you!” And he would tuck me in for a long and peaceful sleep, safe in the knowledge that I was loved.

I remembered that I had certainly not been perfect and I had caused both him and my mother plenty of pain. And I couldn’t forgive him — because there was nothing to forgive.

***

Many years later, delusions crept in. His blood pressure was off the charts but because of early dementia, he insisted his doctor had said he didn’t need the meds and refused them. As a result, his kidneys were failing. There came a point when I had to convince my mother that for her own safety and for his, we had to have him committed. I was the one who had to lie to him and get him to hospital under false pretenses.

In time, he settled into a nursing home. He still had many lucid periods and I enjoyed sitting with him as often as I could.

Eventually, it became evident that the end was near. No one had to tell him; he knew. I broached the subject gently, and in discussing his various wishes, I asked if he wanted anyone with him when he made his transition. He looked at me with his clear, blue eyes and smiled.

“Just you.”

He said he wasn’t scared; he was ready. I spent as much time with him as I could. We shared our favourite unbearably dumb joke one last time and laughed like little kids. “What’s the difference between a duck? Because each leg is both the same.”

It was a cold, Friday night in January, the kind that takes your breath away. My father’s skin was mottled; his breathing was changing. I climbed onto his bed so I could lie next to him, my head on his chest. There was nothing left of him.

He had been unconscious for the previous two days, but that night he was wide awake and staring at me with those crystal blue eyes. He tried to speak, but his tongue was dreadfully swollen, as can happen when Death is near. I stayed next to him on his bed, switching sides every hour or so, stroking his silky grey hair. I told him not to worry about the family; we would all be okay if he was ready to go.

At one point, I sat up to have some water. I gazed down at him and smiled, my eyes filling with tears. With every ounce of strength he had, he reached up and gently laid one bony hand against my cheek to comfort me, as he had done countless times before. He was unable to speak but his blue eyes looked deeply into mine, saying, “It’s okay.” That was just like him, on his deathbed but still offering love and comfort to his girl.

I curled up next to him once again and stroked his cheek the way he used to stroke mine when I was ill. I told him several times that I loved him, and I thanked him for having been the best dad he could be. With my head on his chest again, I listened to the slow but steady tha-thump, tha-thump, tha-thump of his heart.

And then it came. That one long, slow exhale. His final breath escaped his lips and he was gone.

There’s something to be said about little rituals, even the simplest ones especially when they are about the precious gift of love.

As my dad settled in for a long and peaceful sleep amidst his beloved stars, it was my turn to do the tucking in.

“You know something?” I whispered through my tears. “I love you.”

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