[If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-Team]when i was in kindergarten i lived in absecon, new jersery. the green house. it backed into a pine tree farm. frogs lept into the air when my mom mowed the tall grass in the yard. although i was young, i remember a lot of details of my childhood. five different elementary schools. a move every year helped to differentiate and categorize my early days.
the green house was where my mom and dad got to have their own bedrooms but my sister and i had to share. building us bunk beds to make it seem like a treat. decorating my sister's level with curtains sewn from old sheets, to make it into a private clubhouse. her consolation for the fact that, as the older sibling, i got dibs on the top bunk.
my mom slept in the back bedroom. lots of windows, but separate from the warmth of the main house, looking out onto the future christmas trees. my dad slept in the finished attic. the scratchy fold out couch became his bed. when my parents fought, my mom would lock herself in the bathroom, soaking in the tub, and i would play transformers by myself in the attic. i don't think my dad wanted me to be born. after nine months of waiting and regretting, his disappointment was only compounded by the fact that i was not a little boy. when i asked santa claus for roller skates he brought me a skateboard. when my wish list included pinkie pie my little pony, i unwrapped optimus prime. maybe santa had a mix up at the hasboro factory. the confusion, however, sent a pretty clear message: what i wanted was wrong. my girlie tendencies should be repressed in exchange for mud pies and box turtles. forts and cops and robbers. something was obviously wrong with me. i should have been someone else.
on nights when my dad actually returned to the house, we would make popcorn and sit in front of the television in the darkened attic, watching the muppet show and the a-team.
in 1972 a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit. at age five, i could recite the opening monologue. hannibal smith was my favorite.
i love it when a plan comes together. this was my quality time with my dad. one of the few fond memories i have of him. possibly the only one that doesn't involve a trip to friendly's restaurant and the zoo. his attempt to buy my love with a chicken-licken platter and the chance to pet a llama.
there are some events from my past that i would prefer not to remember. ones i remember in great detail, and others that surface in bits and pieces. a jigsaw puzzle of images and emotions that require a little assistance in order to create a clear picture. i was having trouble sleeping in high school. i was having strange dreams. vague recollections of past events. like details from a drunken night slowly coming to the surface, revealing the embarrassing scenes. i eventually presented the pieces to my mom, pleading for her help in filling in the gaps. this is the puzzle we put together on our rickety card table. my mother explained carefully, regretfully, but somehow removed, disconnected:
i was in the green house. climbing the dark, carpeted stairs toward the attic. the television lights bouncing colors onto the slated, closet doors towering at the summit. my dad sat quietly on the fold out couch, hunched, his back toward me. i wanted him to play with me. i wanted him to pay me some attention. but he sat awkwardly, not watching the television, unwilling to meet my gaze. i kept checking on him. the annoying persistence of a bored child. but also knowing something wasn't quite right. i don't remember exactly how the story turned out. whether he finally scooped me up and cuddled me told me stories, or more likely shooed me away, ordering me to play in my room. i don't remember those details, and although i could ask my mother to refresh my memory, i can't bring myself to risk killing the possibility of the former. after all, i became his hero that day. saving lives in footy pajamas.
my father and i have never discussed the incident. but he explained it to my mom. apologizing, weakly. he told her i was his hero. but to my face, he has only ever called me a brat. a money-grubbing bitch. told me he was scared of me. that i was intimidating. and it has taken me twenty-four years to come to some understanding of why he might feel this way. to wrap my brain around how a grown man could fear his own child. a goal was set before me. a good conversation. questions from a caring heart. and they encouraged me to ask some hard questions of myself. to get to the root of the issue.
when i was five years old, my dad tried to kill himself. alone in the attic, he sat with a shot gun in his mouth. but he didn't go through with it. not because he realized the miracle of life, the wonderful gift that lay before him. but because his eldest daughter, the mistake that led to his marriage, the disappointingly female child, brown hair, brown eyes, annoyingly and repeatedly padded up the attic stairs to play with her daddy.
my father was caught, in his most humiliating and weakest moment of life, by a little girl who just wanted to be noticed. and on this day a huge chasm was created. walls were mortared. doors were locked. a little girl was abandoned. left alone to cry herself to sleep. left alone for two decades with questions and incomprehensions. and a father sat alone on the other side, in fear and shame. separate, in emotion and literal miles. too afraid to face the girl who has fumbled into a woman.
all these years i have been angry. confused. ashamed. embarrassed. heartbroken. and today, enlightened by new revelations, different perspectives, i find myself deeply saddened. empathetic. i pity the man who fears his child. i pity my father for all the events that led to that day, the taste of dirty metal, thick in his mouth. the fool he became for walking away. the broken man that ran in fear because no one ever taught him any different.
God gives a father a specific instinct that makes him love his kid more than anything in the world. And I suppose that same instinct was floating around in my father's brain, too, but for whatever reason, he took a look at me and split. Even the instinct God gave him wasn't strong enough to make my dad stay. And that has made me feel, at times, there is this detestable person living within my skin who makes people feel as though they must carry me on their backs. Walking through the park one night I realized I was operating out of inferiority. Deep inside, I believed life was for other people-that joy was for others, and responsibility was for others, and so on and so on. In life, there were people who were meant to live and people who were accidentally born, elected to plod the globe as the despised...These thoughts are illogical, I realize...Still, a logical argument isn't able to change the heart.-Donald Miller
(To Own A Dragon)
