My father was neither a philosopher, nor a hero, nor one of those quirky “Everybody Loves Raymond”-type dads. But he was a success at something all too rare in this day and age.
The first image I have of him is from very long ago, an evening in spring, at Sherman Park. The picture is fuzzy in my mind movie, but I see three of us children in the baby swings, another two or three in big kids’ swings, Dad going all the way down the row, giving each one of us a push, and then starting all over again. I was too small to remember much more, except that it happened many evenings. And though the row of kids got even longer, he never tired of pushing us.
Sometimes we could not go to the park. The tile company for which he was a salesman required that he work some nights, would have to go on a “call” to a customer’s home. Nonetheless he’d still pile all eight of us into the car and my mother in the front, and we’d wait for what sometimes seemed hours, crawling around the seats and the floor, playing with multicolored plastic wall tile samples. It would get dark, he’d be tired, but he’d be so happy to see us when he left that house, and we’d be so happy to see him. Then we’d drive home.
I don’t ever remember babysitters. He’d drag us to wakes and weddings and sales calls and to his softball games. Once he won $10 at a church carnival for having the most kids–there were other men there who claimed to have more, but we were the only ones all present and accounted for.
Once a year, he would put off paying a heating bill and take all of us out to the Martinique Restaurant in Evergreen Park, and he’d call over the owner and piano player and the hostess so that he could introduce each one of his kids.
Years passed and some of my siblings had to leave. Dad dragged all of us across three states to visit little Charlie, my oldest brother, away at St. Ambrose College. I don’t know how young Charlie felt about it, but I remember a lot of the freshmen staring at our party of 10 as we paraded through the dorm and the cafeteria.
Then Jim got drafted and, of course, there was the auto safari all the way down to Texas to the Army base.
Later Pat went to Vietnam. Suddenly there was this impossible situation, this imposed separation, and for the first time someone was messing with his family and he couldn’t do anything about it. It was the first time I ever saw him cry.
Pat came back, but our numbers increased and the world became more complicated, more difficult to control. There were accidents and tragedies and crazy forces and fate, and though we all grew up and went in different directions, and all of our individual lives assumed different colors and shapes, in ways that might ordinarily cause incompatibility and impenetrable distance, Dad, nonetheless, persisted, regularly traveling or rounding everyone up for reunions at opportune times.
He was a champion at “fathering,” which means not just producing a family but keeping it unified and close, even as it grows and changes.
He’s been gone nearly a decade, and we celebrate and live his legacy every Father’s Day.