Happy Father's Day For Me

I breezed past the card aisles and stores this year without feeling the pull. My father, grandfathers, and the uncles and friends who were like fathers to me are all gone. My daughters are adults and on their own, at least as far as greeting cards are concerned. Finally, I don't need to find the perfect verse on a card that my father will never see, the way I did for years after his death.

This year, free of traditions and obligations, my Father's Day gift is to me. I will wrap myself in appreciation, tie on streamers of love, and slip into memories of the men who have given me the gift of life - my father and the fathers of my children and grandchildren. I am forever grateful to these men for the greatest moments in my life, and for contributing to who I am and how I remember life.

I will condense the tomes my father deserves into a few sentences. In the thirty-five years I shared with this man, I never saw him lose his temper, turn his back on a person in need, deliver less than anyone deserved, take advantage of a person or circumstance, embarrass, shame or disappoint anyone, or expect anything. Those who knew him, and many who didn't, admired and respected him. He left this world a better place than he found it, and I feel his presence in the goodness I see around me.

My first husband was like my father, and our daughter fortunate to have lived with their combined influence the first fourteen years of her life. Although this man had never held an infant before her, he jumped into his role with confidence and skill. He spoke her name the first time she heard it, gave her the funny middle name, fed her the first bottle, changed the first diaper, gave her the first bath, dressed her in the first non-hospital-issued outfit, and placed her in her own bed for the first time. He did the middle of the night feedings, cared for her while I worked, laughed with her, taught her, and adored her. He did what every father should do.

Since I am gifting myself, I will remember how far beyond he went for her, by what he did for me. He let me go without destroying her family. Divorce meant he didn't sleep at our house. He, or his next girlfriend, was still there to get my daughter off the school bus and stay with her until I came in from work. He still came by to visit, take us to dinner, and help with homework. He made sure we had what we needed, physically and emotionally. He attended family functions and spent holidays with us. He invited me to his soccer games and parties, and included me when his family came to visit.

When he moved across country, he returned for holidays, called every night to see how his daughter's day had gone and ask if she needed anything. He was a phone call or plane ride away in every decision we needed to make concerning our daughter. Our photo albums contain pictures of our daughter with her parents and their new spouses, all celebrating her life together.

The greatest gift to both of us was the love and respect he continued to show for me. I believe children learn to respect their parents by watching how they treat one another. My daughter didn't have to choose between parents, divide loyalties, or doubt that her parents loved each other. Respect came easy for her.

The second husband accepted the first, loved his daughter, and welcomed him into the lives of the daughter he already had and the one we had later. He also did the normal things - diapers, baths, cared for our daughters while I worked, was room-father at school, and shared his knowledge and talent – but his term ended too soon. He died shortly after our daughter's sixth birthday. The first husband stepped in to fill as much of that void as he could.

The first daughter has married a man who treats their children the way my father and her father treated us. I can't think of a luckier woman than I have been. It is a Happy Father's Day for me.

2018 update: The second daughter, too, is with a man who treats their children like my father treated me. And there's nothing in the world I could more for my daughter and her daughters. I continue to love Father's Day because it reminds me how fortunate I am.
 

Good Grief

I doubt thirty minutes had passed since they rolled the gurney down the hall and out the door and I ran back to see why they hadn't taken him, only to find the bed empty. Skin and bones. Who knew the phrase could be so literal? The skin and bones they wheeled past me hadn't even made an impression in the heavy blanket that covered his full length.

Everyone else cleared out. We went from the thirty to five - one short of what we should have been. Mom collapsed into her chair at one end of the dining room table. My brother, sister, and daughter took side seats. I eased into the chair opposite Mom, thinking I might die if I sat anywhere else and had to stare at that empty chair.

For a while, I wished some of the others had stayed. We seemed to be ghosts, with no words or focus, maybe destined to solidify in our empty positions if no one from the outside returned to stir our emotions. I wished the phone would ring, or a car horn would blow, or someone would cry. Anything to break the silence.

My brother came through. "I think Rosy killed him with that holy water." The words shocked me, not because they were so absurd, but because his voice sounded so much like my father's I had to look up to make sure my brother's lips were moving.

"She probably drowned him," my daughter agreed, biting her cheeks.

My sister giggled. "I wanted to choke her with the rosary."

Without looking up, my mother added her part. "I was ready to throw her out when I saw that. Guess he didn't want to hear it either."

By the time my brother delivered his next line, he was laughing so hard he could barely get it out. "No, that's what did him in."

My sister grabbed a box of tissues off the hutch and plopped it in the center of the table. We laughed until the tears poured.

My mother wiped her eyes and caught her breath. "What would anyone think if they saw us right now? Someone should pull the drapes."

Good grief. A second phrase became literal.

I Hope You Choose Golf, Willie

When asked about retirement, seventy-three-year old Willie Nelson says, "All I do is play music and golf – which one do you want me to give up?"

With over 2500 published songs, 8 Grammy awards, a Presidential Merit Award, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Gene Weed Special Achievement Award for unprecedented and genre-defying contributions to popular music over a fifty-year career under his belt, braids to his waist, wise eyes, and a deceptively youthful bounce in his step, the living legend, singer, songwriter, actor, activist, and author took the stage at Whitney Hall on July 12 and proved he still has what it takes to please a packed house. A few things had changed since the first time I saw him perform. The first time, I paid to park and the show was free. This time tickets ranged from $35.50 to $65.50. The first time I knew jeans and tee shirts were appropriate; this time I didn't know whether to dress for the Kentucky Center, or Willie. I chose Willie.

The most impressive difference this time was Willie's son, Lucas. Either of them would have been worth the price of the ticket alone. What they delivered together was priceless. Lucas not only has the music in him, he is the music. In contrast to his father's gentle pull at the heartstrings through his trademark acoustic sound, the son shows no mercy as he attacks the blues on his electric guitar with the passion of a young Stevie Ray or B.B.

The connection between the two men found its way to my nosebleed seat. I felt privileged to witness what looked like a passing of the torch; Willie shared all he had with his son, and Lucas eagerly and skillfully soaked it up and poured it back to the audience.

The two things that had not changed over the years were Willie's voice and sincerity. If he ever does decides to retire, I hope he gives up golf.

John Fogerty - The Long Road Home

With Viet Nam and the draft hanging over our heads like a bad moon rising, we feared and partied with equal fervor, sometimes doing one to avoid the other. We depended on our music to transport us through both. In 1970, John Fogerty, the fortunate son, stopped the rain and provided much needed respites with his music. We stood down on the corner, wished our brothers did not have to run through the jungle or panic on swift boats, but could instead be rolling down the river on Proud Mary.

Like déjà vu all over again, Fogerty brings his music to offer a break from the storm of another war thirty years later.

In his The Long Road Home concert, sixty-one-year-old Fogerty defies era and age with a timeless performance. He opens the show proclaiming, "What I'm about is plain rock and roll," and then proceeds to deliver everything but plain. With swift guitar changes between each song, few words to fill space, and even fewer flashes or gimmicks, he performs a veritable guitar-feast and thread of the top-ten songs he wrote and performed during his time with Creedence Clearwater Revival, as well as an assortment of newer material. Erasing decades from himself and his music, he bridges the gap between young and once-young fans, and crams twenty-five soulful rock songs into ninety-eight minutes of high-energy, top-notch entertainment.

Born in 1945, in Berkeley, California, Fogerty started performing in the late fifties with his brother, Tom. In 1968, with the band Creedence Clearwater Revival, he produced his first hit with "Susie Q." Between 1969 and 1972, the band released a number of hit singles, including "Bad Moon Rising", "Born on the Bayou", "Down On the Corner", "Fortunate Son", "Green River", "Lookin' Out My Backdoor", "Proud Mary", "Run Through the Jungle", "Travelin' Band", "Up Around the Bend", and "Who'll Stop the Rain". Nine of these became top-ten songs; many have become standards.

In 1973, Fogerty left Creedence Clearwater Revival and began a solo career, originally playing all instruments and calling himself Blue Ridge Rangers. He produced two hits during this period: "Rockin' All Over the World" and "Almost Saturday Night," both songs covered by other artists later.

Even during his low profile years, Fogerty went on to earn a number of awards and recognitions. Rolling Stone named him the 40th greatest guitarist of all time, and the group Creedence Clearwater Revival was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. After a period of retirement, Fogerty returned in 1997 with "Blue Moon Swamp," which won a Grammy for the best rock album of 1998. In 2004, he released "Déjà Vu (All Over Again), as his denunciation of the Iraq war as another Vietnam, and appeared with Bruce Springsteen on MoveOn.org's Vote For Change tour as part of the John Kerry presidential campaign tour.

In 2005, Fogerty was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame, returned to Fantasy Records, and released "The Long Road Home, a compilation of his Creedence and solo hits, and in 2006, he released a DVD version of "The Long Road Home – In Concert." This high-quality disk delivers Fogerty's strong-as-ever, well-seasoned voice and showmanship with such clarity I caught myself jumping off the couch to cheer with the audience several times.

Recently, John completed a European tour and is currently performing dates throughout the United States with Willie Nelson. His latest CD, Déjà vu (All Over Again) is available in record stores, as is the DVD The Long Road Home – In Concert (arranged and produced by John Fogerty, through Concord Records. He will tour in Australia starting November 2006.

I urge everyone to invite John Fogerty into their homes through The Long Road Home - In Concert DVD. It's an evening you won't forget soon, and will want to repeat often.

A Walk With My Real Mother

I went for a walk with my mother yesterday. I walked out the back door with the confused imposter who had been living in her body the last few years and ended up with my real mother by the time we circled the building and stopped to rest by the front door.

Her wheelchair supported both of us until I finally let go to sit on the bench. She rode in the seat and I hung onto the handles, gripping a bit tighter than necessary. If the migraine vision stole my balance or my hip dislocated, I could imagine what she might do to herself trying to rescue me, since that's what real mothers do.

We had forty-five minutes to kill before the ambulance would return her to the nursing home. She called it the hospital but I think she knew the difference this time. She needed to pretend, the way I had the week before when I wheeled her to the dining room down the hall and called it taking her out to dinner.

She tucked the surgeon's report between her leg and the side of the chair and used both hands to drink her diet Sierra Mist, screwing the cap back on after each sip. I wondered which excited her more, having a drink in a bottle instead of a Styrofoam cup with a straw, or realizing she had the dexterity to manipulate the cap without help. Her hands looked confident. Maybe she remembered how I had complimented her penmanship when she signed the forms in the office.

She noticed how green the grass was despite the heat, and decided the thumping noise in the distance must be a large construction tool. It must have felt good for her to be outdoors. In the last year, she had been out only to pass from a car or ambulance to whichever railed, motorized bed she would occupy next. She smiled at a little girl passing with her mother, removed the cap to take another drink, and laughed when she realized it was ninety degrees and she was wearing a sweater. People would think she was crazy but she really wasn't even warm.

She remembered I had no air-conditioning in my car and apologized for making me come out. I reminded her I like heat, and said I was glad to be there. She mentioned knowing someone else was supposed to have been in my place and the nurse had to call me, but believed me when I said I wanted to be there.

We talked about the good news from the doctor; the hip had healed and he released her to put all ninety-six of her pounds on it again. In her mind, that meant she could go home soon, and she proved once again that she was in her right mind by telling me in detail all the things she needed to do when she went home.

I reminded her how much she appreciated the nurses and therapists at the hospital, and how she had saved every menu to show me the wonderful meals they served. She said those things were nice but she was still anxious to go home before she got too spoiled to all that pampering.

I wanted the confused imposter to replace my real mother so I could avoid the rest of the conversation. Her eyes met mine and asked for the truth, as no one but a real mother can.

Today, I hope she doesn't remember that I told her the truth.

Glasses or Stage?

I shared my childhood experience, knowing she would ignore me the same as I had shunned those who tried to warn me. Glasses and braces are uncomfortable and not things to wish for, yet both intrigued my daughter the same as they had me. This is apparently a lesson many of us want to learn first hand.

As a child, my plastic hairbands rested on the bridge of my nose more than they saw the top of my head, often complemented by foil gum wrappers across my teeth. She wore an old pair of sunglasses sans lenses and a paperclip. I let her go, crossed my fingers, and hoped she would outgrow the phase before she choked.

I was neither surprised nor worried when the note came from school announcing she had failed her first eye exam. Prepared to beat the manipulator at her own game, I broke the sad news. I could afford a trip to the eye doctor, or the new game she wanted, not both. I hated having to make that choice. She saved me the anguish. Her eyes were so bad she needed the doctor that day and didn't mind giving up the game. She made the decision without regret.

Another child would have shown less enthusiasm preparing for a trip to an amusement park. She bounced out of bed, dressed without a fuss, rushed me, and chattered nonstop as we drove to the doctor's office and waited her turn. When the exciting moment finally arrived, a clinician asked her to cover one eye and look at the chart of letters on the wall. Although my daughter had been reading the newspaper and road signs since before kindergarten, she couldn't read a single letter on the chart that day.

I shook my head and smiled to ease the clinician's frightened expression. She switched the lettered chart for the pre-school version of giant letter E's headed in different directions. "Let's try this one," she said. "When I point to an E, you show me which way the lines are going by pointing your fingers in the same direction."

"I don't see any E's," my daughter announced. "I don't see anything."

The clinician turned to me. "I'll have to send the doctor in." I bit my cheeks and nodded.

The ophthalmologist entered the room wringing his hands. "I hear we have a problem." He looked over her chair and caught my eye. I covered my mouth and nodded.

"You can't see the letters on the wall?" He asked my near-sighted daughter.

"I can't see any of the letters," she said. "Or the number three on the end."

He cleared his throat. "Have you had any trouble with your eyes burning? Things looking blurry to you?"

She sighed. "My eyes always burn and everything is blurry. I told my mom a million times."

"Well, she has you here now." He winked at me. "We'll take care of you. How are things at school? Any trouble seeing the board?"

"I can't see the board. I can't even see my teacher sometimes."

The doctor closed his eyes and clamped a hand over his mouth.

"I think I need glasses," my daughter said.

"Possible." The doctor pulled the refractor down and positioned it on her face. "I need you to look through here and tell me if you can read the letters now." He flipped and switched lenses, questioning her after each change.

After what might have been the longest eye exam in history, she still could not see one letter on the wall. The doctor pulled the machine away from her eyes and pushed it back into place over her head.

"I think I could see the letters with glasses," my daughter said.

The doctor shook his head. "I'm afraid not. I just tried every pair of glasses we have on your eyes and none of them helped. I believe your eyes are just tired." He looked at me. "This girl just needs more sleep. I would suggest putting her to bed thirty minutes earlier at night."

I thanked him and expressed my relief. She left the examining room ahead of me and he offered another bit of advice. "She belongs on stage."

I Forgot To Be Betty

Everyone left the small table by the mirrored pole for Betty, no table tent announcing reserved for necessary. Employees and regulars honored the icon who remembered their names, birthdays, recent illnesses, habits, and accomplishments as though each of them were her personal charge by leaving this space for her, six nights a week, fifty-two weeks a year, open-to-close, no questions asked. Drop-ins must have sensed either the good-natured cussing the feisty redhead would deliver should she find anyone in her seat, or censure from others if they ventured near her table.

Her slender, athletic frame and high-fashion clothes masked the fact that Betty was usually the oldest person in the club. When caught in the bright lights near the stage or the DJ booth, the lines on her face broke through heavy layers of make-up, suggesting she might fit better at the bingo down the road, or maybe a nursing home across town. Otherwise, she appeared to have more energy and spirit than the rest of the crowd combined.

She danced every song, most of them alone. Her smile welcomed the first note of music and remained faithful through the last. The band dedicated her favorite songs without request and she waved her arms overhead until the song ended and it was time to blow each musician a kiss of gratitude. Waitresses delivered her drinks without orders. Betty characterized routine.

Years of speculation shrouded this woman's tenure. She knew the owners. The cook was her sister. She wanted to find a younger man. She was a retired dance instructor, insane, lonely, a rich old lady with nothing better to do, good for a blow job in the backroom or parking lot, an alcoholic, a lost soul. Projection circulated like folklore, without verification or malice. Betty became everyone's eccentric aunt. Annoying succumbed to permanent and accepted.

With the same permanence, "Blue Eyes Crying In the Rain" lingered on the song list years after falling off the hit charts. A Betty favorite, it never failed to pack the dance floor. Although the song was also high on my list, I dodged the dance floor when it started to take advantage of the vacant ladies room. Deviating from routine, Betty followed.

I took a stall; she stopped in front of the mirror. A honking blow, loud enough for me to hear over the flushing toilet and background music, convinced me illness must explain Betty's uncharacteristic silence.

I buttoned my jeans and stepped out into a changed world. Betty raised shaking hands in an attempt to hide the tear washed mascara streaming into the crevices on her face. "That song," she said, stepping away from the sink.

I switched my gaze to the water running over my hands. "It always gets to me, too. Such a sad song."

She opened a stall door, pulled off a new strip of toilet paper, blew her nose again, and let loose a new stream of tears. Relieved the song had ended, I dried my hands and turned, expecting Betty to return to normal. She snuffled behind her hands. Her head and shoulders shook. I locked the outside door as laughter, cheerful voices, and undue humiliation neared.

"That was his song," she explained as I wet a paper towel and wiped the streaks off her face. "Don't know why it got to me tonight."

"Maybe you needed a good cry," I said. "Funny how these things hit at the worst possible times."

"We danced every weekend for fifty-two years. He made me promise I wouldn't stop when he was gone."

"And you haven't." I spoke around my own mascara-threatening torrent.

"Hell no. Long as I'm dancing, I feel like he's with me." Her smile returned.

I unlocked the door, years of speculation lighter and hoping, with all my heart, I would be just like Betty one day.