My Father

I know I describe my blog as being about life in Rome. I guess one should read that with the emphasis placed more on "my life" though and not really the "in Rome" part because Rome while a wonderful, chaotic, maddening, infuriating and dear city to me - it is only essentially a backdrop to a regular old life being played out as so many other lives are being played out of every hour, every minute, every second of every day.

I have read other expat blogs about Rome, about Italy in general - they range from the boring to the sublime and sometimes I wish I could write daily blog entries about what I ate (photos included) or what amazing places we visited, but for the most part - I forgot those things soon after they happen unless they have made a real impact on me or something particular happened that I want to remember in the future. For the most part, this blog is just my ramblings, my musings - sometimes my ranting and venting, and unfortunately, I'm not nearly as prolific as I would like to be.

Which takes me to this morning - when I woke up thinking about my father. My father died 24 years ago. I was 18 years old when it happened so he's actually been dead longer than I knew him alive. I barely think about him, his face is hard to conjure up and I don't really remember his voice anymore as he had his regular voice and then his post-larynx removal voice. However, that doesn't lessen the emotional impact I feel whenever I think about him as I was this morning.

I have my happy memories - the ones when I was very little and he would play with me - a game called Monsters and a game he would play with his fingers becoming a little creature called Piau who would tickle or pinch me - depending what kind of mood he was in. I loved Piau and I think that was my father's favorite game as it required little effort on his part.

I have my bad memories - that usually involve the guilt I still feel to this day of the way I treated him as he was dying. These were the memories that I was having this morning. My father was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx when I was a senior in high school. That whole time was a blur as the last thing I wanted to do was go visit my father in the hospital. Being in the military he was required to go to the military hospital in Denver called Fitzsimmons. A hellish place if you can imagine what a low budget, no frills military hospital can be like. He ended up having half his larynx removed in a horrendous medieval style surgery and had to have a lot of physical therapy after that to restore his speech which was never quite the same. My mother was driving the 2 hours there and 2 hours back every day while still working a physically demanding factory job that had her getting home around 1 or 2 in the morning. When I think about how exhausted my poor mother must have been as well as worried, scared and stressed and when I think about my attitude during that time - my 17 year old self-absorbed, self-centered, completely selfish attitude - I am completely and utterly ashamed at myself and always will be.

The selfishness continued as a freshman in college. I was going to a private liberal arts college that was much too expensive for us to afford, yet since I was accepted, my father insisted I attend no matter how much he or my mother had to work. However, my thoughts weren't on my studies and they certainly weren't on my father's health. I had never had a boyfriend before and I was obsessed - with boys and wanting to be kissed. I finally met someone on my 18th birthday, and of course, that's all I was interested in - certainly not my father's decaying health - he at this point had been diagnosed with lung cancer. My mother was dragging herself to work, my brothers and sisters made themselves scarce, and I was alone with my father in the evenings except for the many times when I was off with friends or more often than not, the new boyfriend. My father kept having to have his lung drained and I recall the few times I had to clean the wound and put in more gauze - it wasn't pretty, but there was no one else around to do it.

Perhaps it was too much for me to deal with - I guess I could blame it on my youth, my naivete and inexperience. Yet 42 year old Linda looking back at 18 year old Linda has nothing but contempt and disgust for her. I can't forgive my youth. I can't forgive the stupid mistakes I made nor the fact that while my father was dying, all I could think about was some stupid guy. I couldn't think or feel for anything beyond my own selfish needs and desires. When I think of the times I could have probably just sat with my father and hung out with him, talked to him, gave him a bit of company in those final weeks and days. Well, when I start to go down that path - my heart breaks - the tightness and heaviness in my throat and chest make the tears come out in gushes and there's a deep, deep pain there that I just can't shake and sometimes doubt that I ever will.

My father died early in the morning, 10 December 1984. I had woken up early - restless and stressed because I had procrastinated as usual on an essay paper due that day. I received a knock on my bedroom door and my mother stood there looking stunned and defeated saying my father had died. Their room was directly next door to mine and I remember seeing him slumped there in his chair, head thrown back, mouth open sitting there in his boxer shorts. I started to shake him asking him to wake up. The tears began. Finally, my mother and I carried him onto the bed. We covered him up with blankets and I combed his hair - he really didn't like what little hair he had on his head to be mussed. I may have given him a kiss, I don't remember now. He was 57 years old.

My father lived a short life. I wish I could say it was a life filled with privilege, happiness, comfort and joy. It wasn't. I wish I could say he did all the things he dreamed about doing. He didn't. Yet my father - at least by the time I was born - did lead a simple life, a quiet life. He was a decent and honest person. He didn't yell, didn't hit, he wasn't loud or rude. He cared deeply about his children and he loved my mother. I will always regret that he never met Steve nor hold or play with his granddaughters because he would have adored them. Even though that image of him gets fuzzier and fuzzier with time - I try to hold him as best as I can in my heart so that our children one day can perhaps know him through me.