I would go so far as to say that most of my childhood trauma was orchestrated by my mother. I didn’t have the words until recently for malevolent parentification but have always been able to make the connections between her actions and the emotions my brave therapist finds herself regularly wading through. Even as I seek out ways to cope with the carnage she left behind, I knew my mother very well. I knew what she was up to, and usually why. Case, more or less, closed.
A true enigma to the day he died-this month-was my father. One of the few things I do know is that his favorite movie was Jeremiah Johnson. It is a seventies film starring Robert Redford about a mountain man who lived during the expansion of the American western frontier. I have seen that movie so many times, and have heard my dad lament over and over that he was born in the wrong century.
My only take away from Mr. Johnson’s adventures was a lifelong enthusiasm for aloof, blonde, horsemen (ref: brave therapist). But Dad craved that solitary life, building a cabin far away from corrupt civilization while hunting and fishing to survive.
Growing up, our vacations were camping trips. We bounced around the bed of the truck as he drove the family along unpaved forest roads for hours, sometimes looking for the perfect spot and sometimes just looking around. A fishing pole was always with the gear, should a random lake materialize during our travels. Frequently, it did. While my siblings and I made ourselves the scourge of the forest, Dad was miles away, either scouting for game prior to hunting season or actively on the hunt.
A few trips a year does not a mountain man make, and over time those trips became fewer and farther apart. A decade of acting as caretaker for my mother and forty years in a blue collar job made it difficult to get away.
Once he was freed from those responsibilities, I was certain of three things: that he would be fishing all the time; that he would hassle my brother into applying for tags on every possible hunt; and, that we would probably have to report him missing someday after he’d gone up north by himself.
This was not the case. He would, on occasion, accompany my brother on various outings but usually declined, and never went by himself. He wouldn’t even be persuaded to use a county parks pass. I could not fathom this. Why was he not living his dream? It was not only well within his reach, Dad was young enough and healthy enough to truly enjoy it-a gift rare among his peers.
He was quick to anger when I was young and it was best to steer clear, but even as his demeanor softened over the years, I realize that I was never able to really know the man. But I did know Jeremiah Johnson and, standing at my dad’s hospital bedside, my heart was breaking over the things he never managed to do.
Why did he abandon the life that he wanted? Did he lack the confidence? Was he too tired? Did he lose interest? Why is it that out of the blue my father contracted pneumonia and was gone within the space of a month? There should be a damn good reason for that one.
Hmmm.
Hyper fixating on what informed his retirement activities will not provide an answer to the real question you’re asking because there is no good reason at all, is there, Vanessa?
Further, his inner thoughts were none of my business, and I’m quite sure there is much I should
be thankful that I don’t know. In the midst of a complicated grieving process, it is absurd to be haunted by a “what could have been” that isn’t even mine.
I must resolve simply to imagine my father now as I believe he once imagined himself: casting a line from the bank of an unnamed river, comforted by the sight of smoke curling off the chimney atop his cabin in the woods.