Poet Dad
I spent this past weekend in Santa Cruz, CA visiting with my Dad who lives alone in a modest three-bedroom beach house approximately two blocks from 26th Avenue Beach. For the better part of my teenage years, I lived in this beach house along with my two younger brothers, mom, and dad. My parents eventually divorced after thirty years of marriage resulting in my mom moving to Watsonville and my dad keeping the “family” house.
Divorce is always a tricky storm to navigate for children no matter what their ages. In my experience, I subconsciously chose to support my dad for years because I blamed my mom for the separation even though she had been mentally struggling in a dysfunctional marriage for most of her adult life. This was the unfortunate part of the split because I lost out on a significant amount of time with my mom. As a result of the failed marriage, my mom married another man who is the polar opposite of my dad while my dad continues to languish in his lost love and past memories. Every once in a while, I find myself rummaging through our family pictures or peruse the ever-expanding pile of “stuff” that my dad refuses to throw in the trash. Memories are fickle encounters like ash from a fire; they are created from the remnants of past, present and future burning embers. Sometimes I locate a pearl in the coals of yesteryear which is exactly what happened on this trip. I was in the back bedroom sifting through a pile of paperwork when I found a hand written note. The writing was in cursive, a clue my dad had penned whatever was contained within, and I sat down on the edge of the bed to read. Slowly the words on the lined paper metamorphized, flowing together in rapid succession forming rhythm, rhyme, and intent:
There are places I remember all
my life though some have changed
Some forever not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places have their moments
with friends and lovers, I still
recall-
Some are dead and some still
living-In my life I loved
them all-
But of all the friends and
lovers these memories lose
their meaning when I think
of love as something new.
“My Dad had written a poem”, I thought to myself. For me, this was a transformational moment in how I perceived my father. For the past 45 years of my life, my father had always minimized his intellect to the point of self-deprecation. I assumed the worst, hoped for the best, and tried to connect with him somewhere in the middle with respect to my pursuit of knowledge. Somewhere deep inside his subconscious, he shared my love for poetry and found solace in words and phrases through which he expressed a deeper connection to life. I also related to much of what he wrote as though we were walking together along the sands of time.
After reading the poem several times, I strolled through the house looking for him. I found him in his usual spot, seated at the kitchen table scrolling through Facebook. I asked him about the poem and he told me that he hoped that it would be found when he had passed on. I was incredulous. “Why would you not share this with me?” I asked him. His answer was buried in insecurity and self-denial; all attributes I have fought so hard to release into the universe. I may never find another poem written by my dad, but for now, one is enough to understand a complex man.
