Comments on: Omissions Through the Years

By: Cancer Bitch

Cancer Bitch — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 05:08:46 +0000

Very interesting. It does take a long while to finally have the long view. Have you ever read or seen The Long Christmas Dinner by Thornton Wilder? It’s the same family at the same holiday table for generation after generation.
My father died while trying on clothes at a store. I wonder what he might have been like if the aneurysm had been caught before it burst. He was a little forgetful. Would he have lost his mind and been lost for years and years and would we be thinking that it would have been better if he’d died suddenly, like while trying on clothes?

By: Craig

Craig — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 05:04:59 +0000

Ruth-
I think there are a number of us with father issues;wanting to
hear some things, needing to hear others, getting, instead, long
awkward silences. I know I still see my dad in the mirror and hear him
as he tells me “that is not the way I taught you”. I think he heard and saw the same from his dead dad.I like that you hear what you need to hear fromm the silences with yours.Here is a poem you may know that I usually haul out sometimes in June to celebrate Fathers Day

forgiving our fathers
by dick lourie

maybe in a dream: he’s in your power
you twist his arm but you’re not sure it was
he that stole your money you feel calmer
and you decide to let him go free

or he’s the one (as in a dream of mine)
I must pull from the water but I never
knew it or wouldn’t have done it until
I saw the street-theater play so close up
I was moved to actions I’d never before taken

maybe for leaving us too often or
forever when we were little maybe
for scaring us with unexpected rage
or making us nervous because there seemed
never to be any rage there at all

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 only through layers of cloth
or never speaking or never being silent

in our age or in theirs or in their deaths
saying it to them or not saying it -
if we forgive our fathers what is left

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:34:18 +0000

I think the lack of hope is the worst part.

By: ruthpennebaker

ruthpennebaker — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:28:43 +0000

I’m glad you find the posts helpful, Cynthia. It’s such an incredibly painful topic to me — confusing and lacking in any hope. I guess we all muddle through this the best we can, but it’s hard.

By: Cynthia

Cynthia — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 16:24:37 +0000

Ruth, you don’t know how much these posts mean to me. My Dad’s Alzheimer’s is in what I think is probably a middle stage. He still has some moments of semi-lucidity, but he is starting to ask to “go home.” He’s still living in the same house he’s lived in for the last 20 years. We’re not sure where his mind thinks home is. He’s so sad and depressed now, I think it might be better when he doesn’t know anything. Is that a horrible way to feel?

Thanks again for writing about this.