This is a funny story, I guess, although it was painful at the time, and this morning it takes on another dimension.
In the spring of 2002, I noticed that Father's Day was approaching and decided it would be nice to write a column about dads in general and mine in specific. A few weeks before the fact, I made my usual notes -- not even really a draft, just a few paragraphs, a couple of phrases to try out, maybe 500 words to get my engine revved.
When it got close, I came back to the subject, ignored the draft and finished the piece. Knowing that most papers would run Father's Day essays, I decided to shop this one around. I was on the phone with an editor from a large Northwest daily when I realized I hadn't sent the column off to my flagship paper. So, in the middle of the conversation with this guy, tweaking the column, I emailed it to my paper an hour before deadline.
I'm generally not allowed to do two things at once. I don't even like to drive with the radio on. I am a unitasker, genetically unfit to be a waiter or perform in a marching band.
Which is why, and how, while on the phone, I sent off the draft.
Whatever was on that 18 1/2-minute splice of tape that Nixon didn't want us to hear, it couldn't have been worse than this. I had no point, no focus, and no ending. It was a diary entry that I would have scratched out. It was horrible, and, God love 'em, my paper published it without a word and thousands of people probably wondered about me.
On the other hand, the correct version got a lot more play and prominence, and Dad was happy with both. And I now have a "draft" folder on my hard drive.
I leave SeaTac in 10 hours for Arizona. My father is dying, and I'm going to say goodbye. I won't be posting for a few days, then, but I will leave you this. It's even more true than it was 1-1/2 years ago. The irony of the title is not lost on me, either.
Men Don't Leave
My wife refused to marry me until I was 25. She's slightly older and had a thing about it.
(Did I say slightly? I meant barely, a trivial amount, almost negligible.)
This was the only requirement, and it was easy; it wasn't like I had to have, you know, a job or something.
Twenty-five is a good age to get married, I think, especially if you're planning a family. Young enough to still have some energy, but old enough to have learned some patience and developed enough fortitude to change a diaper without throwing up.
I was thinking about the missing men, here with Father's Day coming up. The ones who leave, who abandon their families. I wonder how many got married too young.
I can imagine him, 18 and in love, and he gets married and life happens and suddenly he's 24 with three kids and no money. Maybe he's a good man, works hard and tries to do his best, but it's a petrifying responsibility and one day he just runs.
Birthday cards and money from a distance are nice but not enough, not nearly enough, and even if his kids get curious when they're older and find some sort of reconciliation, there's a hole that can't be filled in retrospect. There are things you're supposed to learn from your father.
It's a sad story, suitable for a cable movie or a thin novel with a title like, "A Second Summer" or "A Time To Heal." Maybe the father is dying; that's always a nice touch. It's a good story, a real tearjerker, and it always begs a question for me:
What if he doesn't?
Is it still a good story if he doesn't leave? The fear stays too, it's always there, and he gets up early in the morning and drinks his coffee and shakes, wondering how he can possibly do this. He has a decent job, but he can't see how there will ever be enough money. He gets dressed, though, and goes to work every day just the same.
He's 34 before he can buy a house. Years of renting, moving from neighborhood to neighborhood, job to better job, but he does, finally. The kids are teenagers now, and they're irritating and perplexing but they do well in school and there are no problems with drugs or jail or pregnancies.
Some of their friends, the boys, seem drawn to him and seek him out. Maybe he wonders about this, wonders what they want. He doesn't see it but there's something substantial about him, something solid and serious, and teenage boys can't express it but they recognize it as a good thing to be, something men should be.
College comes and there's no money, it's been spent on surviving, but his kids are good students and they get scholarships and jobs and it works out fine, and suddenly he's 40-ish and freer. There are always midlife demons to chase, though, and life doesn't get any easier.
He still goes to work every day, and on weekends he makes a list of projects and chores to do, crossing them off as he finishes. His family teases him about his slow ways, his meticulous and careful construction, with the deck or the workbench or the patio or the plumbing. He's slow, he is, but the craftsman is hardwired in his soul and what he makes doesn't break, and it lasts.
He harbors regrets, and when he speaks of his kids he's proud but points to his wife and says it was her, she did it all by herself, not me. His children know better.
The younger son calls him one night, deep in his cups and his own midlife demon chase, and he asks him then: "Did you ever think about leaving?"
He's 65 but he remembers, he still shudders when he sees a junky car with diaper bags in the backseat, and he gives his son no advice, no admonitions, no words of wisdom, just the truth. "Oh yes. Lots of times. Lots of times."
We grieve, we parents, over mistakes and missed opportunities, over dark thoughts and choices we might have made but didn't, and all the time we were there every day, fumbling through the process and going to work, and in watching us our children learned their lessons.
And this is what I learned from my father: Life is difficult. There's always work to be done. Men don't leave.
Two teenagers got married in 1955, and it turned out to be a good story after all. Building a family is hard work, no matter when you start, but done slowly and carefully it won't break, and it lasts. This is simple but it's true, and I know because I learned it from my father.
7:53:34 AM 
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