Forgiving our Fathers
(copy and pasted from LB to keep here)
Studying on fatherhood today.
Thinking about my older son still in bed who won't see his father, since his father who has always been fatherless told me last year when I asked him why he didn't involve our beautiful son in his life anymore, replying he said to me, "Because I've moved on..."
And when the now apparently fatherless son asked his step-father last night what he would like as a gift for father's day, the reply was, "Stay out late tonight so I can be alone with your mom..." An innocent enough thing to chuckle over, but what does that mean for the fatherless son who is attempting to be fathered? And then, the crux comes from how can a fatherless step-father know how to answer that question? Because the fatherless step-father's fatherless father came home one night years ago, too late and too drunk to his enraged girlfriend who stuck a steak knife in his heart, he pulled it out and bled to death while his son's slept in their mother's house just a few miles away. Now fatherless sons.
When you ask the fatherless step-father about the dead father what does he know to answer since he's never known about that kind of thing, being fathered? So instead, since he doesn't know how to celebrate fathering, he does what he thinks is good fathering instead: He provides. And he goes to work a full day on Father's Day and here at home his own children will prepare him a meal and a cake so when he carries his worn out bones and flesh over the front stoop to find a chair and solitude from a day of performing expectation he can say he's fathered today.
There was one Sunday morning when I was a kid and it was after my mom tried to kill herself the first time (one day I will get to a story about the 2nd time, but they all kind of blur together after that first one), and Dad and I went to church, I don't know why, I guess he wanted to pray for her. And we started a hymn and it was the first time ever that her voice wasn't beside me and I could not smell her morning coffee breath while she sang offkey. So I couldn't help it ~ I had to cry and like what still happens to me in church sometimes, it came in torrents. But I felt the strong warm arms of my father envelop me with all the fervored comfort he could muster and he stopped singing, held me and shook with racking sobs while the congregation went on with the music and we sat in that front pew curled up together like scared rabbits.
There is a poem at the end of Smoke Signals I think about every father's day called Forgiving Our Fathers By Dick Lorie. I think:
How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?
How do we forgive our Fathers?
Maybe in a dream
Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever
when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous
because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.
Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?
For Divorcing or not divorcing our Mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning
for shutting doors
for speaking through walls
or never speaking
or never being silent?
Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs
or their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it?
If we forgive our Fathers what is left?
Studying on fatherhood today.
Thinking about my older son still in bed who won't see his father, since his father who has always been fatherless told me last year when I asked him why he didn't involve our beautiful son in his life anymore, replying he said to me, "Because I've moved on..."
And when the now apparently fatherless son asked his step-father last night what he would like as a gift for father's day, the reply was, "Stay out late tonight so I can be alone with your mom..." An innocent enough thing to chuckle over, but what does that mean for the fatherless son who is attempting to be fathered? And then, the crux comes from how can a fatherless step-father know how to answer that question? Because the fatherless step-father's fatherless father came home one night years ago, too late and too drunk to his enraged girlfriend who stuck a steak knife in his heart, he pulled it out and bled to death while his son's slept in their mother's house just a few miles away. Now fatherless sons.
When you ask the fatherless step-father about the dead father what does he know to answer since he's never known about that kind of thing, being fathered? So instead, since he doesn't know how to celebrate fathering, he does what he thinks is good fathering instead: He provides. And he goes to work a full day on Father's Day and here at home his own children will prepare him a meal and a cake so when he carries his worn out bones and flesh over the front stoop to find a chair and solitude from a day of performing expectation he can say he's fathered today.
There was one Sunday morning when I was a kid and it was after my mom tried to kill herself the first time (one day I will get to a story about the 2nd time, but they all kind of blur together after that first one), and Dad and I went to church, I don't know why, I guess he wanted to pray for her. And we started a hymn and it was the first time ever that her voice wasn't beside me and I could not smell her morning coffee breath while she sang offkey. So I couldn't help it ~ I had to cry and like what still happens to me in church sometimes, it came in torrents. But I felt the strong warm arms of my father envelop me with all the fervored comfort he could muster and he stopped singing, held me and shook with racking sobs while the congregation went on with the music and we sat in that front pew curled up together like scared rabbits.
There is a poem at the end of Smoke Signals I think about every father's day called Forgiving Our Fathers By Dick Lorie. I think:
How Do We Forgive Our Fathers?
How do we forgive our Fathers?
Maybe in a dream
Do we forgive our Fathers for leaving us too often or forever
when we were little?
Maybe for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous
because there never seemed to be any rage there at all.
Do we forgive our Fathers for marrying or not marrying our Mothers?
For Divorcing or not divorcing our Mothers?
And shall we forgive them for their excesses of warmth or coldness?
Shall we forgive them for pushing or leaning
for shutting doors
for speaking through walls
or never speaking
or never being silent?
Do we forgive our Fathers in our age or in theirs
or their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it?
If we forgive our Fathers what is left?
posted by SPOA | 7:41 PM
2 Comments:
What is forgiveness?
It has to be more than lip service. It has to be embracing.
You know, I don't even know. Sometimes I feel like, who am I to presume that I can bestow forgiveness on another? I'm not fucking Jesus. Sometimes when I realize how fucked up I am forgiveness is moot, even toward the worst transgressor. Sometimes I feel I balk at forgiving because I am not yet done with the person who has hurt me ~ there is still more to learn from them.
That's what I think Dick Lourie is on about because once we decide we've forgiven, what is after that? We so much identify with our wounding it's like we wonder, who are we without it.
But maybe I have it wrong and maybe it's about forgiving ourselves for who we are as the weak and walking wounded and realizing we are not here to be the healed, but to be human.
I just read over this. I get first prize for alliteration this week.
Post a Comment
<< Home