Capsule View: Dad Right Now

I've often wondered what it would be like to have known my mother when I was older than 20--when I was working as a writer, dating, engaged, married, pregnant and finally, a mother myself. Doing many of the things that she had done.

I think I've romanticized how it would be. Would we, could we have been friends? What would she think of my parenting style? My career? My hair?

I've asked a couple of my friends, "What's it like to have your mother around when you're an adult? Do you ever talk about sex, or beauty secrets?"

They pretty much say no.

Daddy's Little Girl
I think my Dad and I have gotten along so well because of my gender. Seems like he doesn't hold me up to the same standards he held my brothers up to [after all, he grew up with just two brothers himself--no girls]. Sis and I are kind of like birds of another [exotic] feather. He expects a lot of us and is impressed with us, but I think it would be harder to be his son. To measure up. We, as his daughters, have different yardsticks.

He and I have always been close. As a little girl, I'd often go out with him in the evenings for a short drive--to get a bottled half-gallon of milk from Garden State Farms [my parents would mix it in with the instant stuff in that grayish blue melamine pitcher], occasionally even a Nutty Butty ice cream cone.

On weekends, he'd take me along to visit the older French gentleman from whom he bought an old Renault for next to nothing, or to pick up his tiny Aunt Tessie from New York and bring her over to Dumont to share Sis's April birthday dinner.
Sometimes, he'd come home from work at the chemical company and sit down with me on the living room couch to go over my history and geography in grammar school. He was still wearing his white office shirt and tie.

One of his favorite Sunday memories, even now, is dropping me off at the bakery at the monument in Dumont with a little change. "You'd always come out with a few things," he says with a laugh. "Danish and a couple of cookies or something. They'd always give you something extra because you were just a kid."

His Story
By now, we've talked about most everything. Even sex. He's told me it's natural for a married couple's sex life to go through phases. He told me some close friends of my parents would joke and tease that "Oh, things must be good now" at the times that they weren't, and suspect that they weren't at the times that they were. He once said that everyone looks better in a little bit of clothing rather than completely naked. And that wearing high heels changes a woman's whole posture. Like him, I have a pretty good memory. So if he said something once, I've stored it away.

He's told me about being a boy, about sharing one bed with his two older brothers, Anthony and Aldo. [They'd alternate, two with their heads at the top and one with his feet at the top.] He was close to his grandfather, who lived in the building.

He had a bunny rabbit he loved but then his father made him kill it one day for dinner. He was very upset. "I wouldn't eat any," he said.

He's talked about being embarrassed about the giant purple port wine birthmark that covers most of his torso and much of his leg. He hated when they had to swim in the pool at high school. I realized one day, as an adult, that having me [or my brothers or Sis] with him in the waves at Cape Cod and Jones Beach and Beach Haven must have made it easier for him to go in.

He enjoyed the Upper East Side neighborhood where he went to high school at Regis. He saw lots of well-appointed people, men wearing homburg hats and walking well-groomed poodles.

Regis was rigorous; he left after three years. He's said many times that this one teacher wanted the boys to cry and beg if they got a bad grade, and then he'd change it. My Dad didn't want to do that. He switched to the public high school for senior year, without even telling his parents.

He starting smoking as a teen. He had lots of male friends in the Bronx. He bought a car with his brother Aldo.

When he got an engagement ring for my mother, and showed it to his own mother, she acted insulted that she didn't know ahead of time.

And when his parents, Charles and Rosie [off the boat from Italy] had my mother's parents, Jim [off the boat from Ireland] and Alice over after the engagement, my grandfathers could not understand a word each other said. One spoke only Italian, the other had a thick Galway brogue. Where things converged: Both had been elevator operators in NYC.

"Grandpa was telling the kind of Irish jokes he always liked to tell, about gravediggers, or being short taken, and my father didn't know what he was talking about. He just smiled and nodded politely, acting like he understood. And then after they left, he asked us what Mr. Mahon was talking about all that time."

Dialing Dad Now
At 87, he's hanging in there. I kind of want to talk to him about death, about whether he is afraid of eventually dying. But I don't want to upset him.

He's still a good friend to his old friends, but not as devoted as he used to be. And besides, not many of them are left anymore. He's a bit more focused on his own problems, on making sure he has enough disposable underwear and toilet paper in the house.

He hasn't been driving for months, but just renewed his driver's license.

He uses a walker.

He takes many different pills three times a day--for circulation, and lots of other things. They're big and small, round and oblong, white and yellow. Sis and I take turns filling the pill boxes.

He really likes Pepsi, his new helper from 9 A.M. to 1 P.M. Monday through Friday. He's had some help since November, when he came home from rehab after going to the hospital for leg pain. Pepsi is the fourth, and his favorite. "She's very good," he says. "She even walked across the street to CVS to get me the diapers. She thought of it herself. I didn't even ask her." The others left that job for Sis or me.

But none of that would answer the question of someone who lost their Dad early [like my friend Irene, whose Papa died soon after high school graduation].

So, "What's it like to have your dad around when you're an adult?"

Here's What It's Like
It's like having:

A friend, an advocate, who is always on your side. We generally talk at least once a day, and see each other once a week.

Someone who still worries about you when you're sick. Asks if you're getting enough sleep.

Someone who wants to be sure you're on the right course for work--working hard, making some money.

Someone who sees the bigger picture of your life, from when you were born to exactly now. And puts it all in perspective.

Someone who argues with you about politics and sometimes defends conservatives--mostly, it seems, to get a rise out of you.

Someone who still makes jokes.

Someone who can make you feel better when you're feeling sad, or mad. Or like a failure, a mess, a rush. A floundering kid.

Not sure exactly how, but suspect it has something to do with knowing that you are talking to and confiding in a person who has a unique role in your life. He is your father. And a father's view of his child is different from everyone else's view of you.

He has been on the other end of the phone for as long as you needed to call him.