My birth father was a violent, unpredictable man. After he
and my mother finally divorced, the last thing any of us kids wanted was
another man around. So when Mother remarried, we weren’t the most welcoming to
our stepfather. But he won us over with his quiet steady caring, his reliable
responsibility, and his willingness to take on all five of us, to become
Little League coach and Scout leader. Eventually we were calling him “Dad.”
Mother died first. Years later, when Dad was facing a
protracted end due to cancer and had to be in a nursing home in a town where
none of us kids lived any longer, my sister and I divided the week between us
to go stay in that town and spend each day with him, our brothers pitching in
when they could. When Dad’s end was near, my sister called, and I packed my
kids in the car and drove like a drag racer to make it to that town in time. We
all did. Dad died in my arms and my sister’s while the boys all stood around
him as close as they could get. Afterward, one of the nursing-home aides said
to me, “Surely, that man was loved!”
This poem is for Dad on Father's Day.
CONVERSATION
WITH MY MOTHER’S PICTURE
You and Dad
were entirely happy here—
you in
purple miniskirt, white vest and tights
(you always
wore what was already too young
for me),
Dad in purple striped pants,
a Kansas
State newsboy’s cap
made for a
bigger man’s head.
You both
held Wildcat flags and megaphones
to cheer
the football team who,
like the
rest of the college, despised you
middle-aged
townies, arranging for their penicillin
and
pregnancy tests and selling them
cameras and
stereos at deep discount.
But you
were happy
in this
picture, before they found
oat-cells
in your lungs.
After the
verdict, he took you to Disneyland,
this man
who married you and your five children
when I was
fifteen. He took you cross-country
to visit
your family, unseen
since your
messy divorce.
He took you
to St. Louis
and Six
Flags Over Texas and to Topeka
for
radiation treatments.
I don’t
think he ever believed
you could
die. Now he’s going
the same
way. And none of us
live in
that Wildcat town with the man
who earned
his “Dad” the hard way
from
suspicious kids and nursed
your last
days. For me, this new dying
brings back
yours, leaving me only this image
of you both
cheering for lucky winners.
Published in Heart’s Migration
(Tia Chucha Press, 2009)
