FATHERHOOD

I'm no good at this anymore...not the blogging. In fact, since I've been confiding so much in my journal, I hardly find time to write much else. This may not even be a complete thought I have to share, but I figured I'd start it just like any entry in my journal.

MY FATHER

I've been dreaming about my dad a lot the last couple of weeks. Very vivid dreams in which he is usually upset, perturbed or frustrated about something and taking it out on everyone else. I don't know why I've been dreaming about him so much. He's still alive and well. But dream I have.

I shared one of the dreams with my youngest daughter because, in it, he was getting upset with her because his feelings were hurt by her unresponsiveness. It's not like my youngest daughter at all to be unresponsive, unless she's totally distracted or asleep. In this dream it was the latter and he could not wake her up to go with him on an errand or to breakfast or something. The details of my dreams, often forgotten are not important, but the very real feelings they evoke are. I got very protective of her in this one, standing up to my father, dressing him down and even going a step further into the territory of insult.

Now, I know I was taking my life into my own hands at that point because he could react in one of two ways--sulk away defeated or charge at me like a bull. I feared the worse, but he simply sulked away, feeling bad about how he'd acted. My youngest wouldn't hurt a flea, let alone intentionally hurt her Papaw. I held my groggy, upset girl close, closer than ever, and just stayed in that embrace for several long minutes, ignoring my mother who was trying to gloss things over.

Okay, that was way more than I intended to share about that dream, but that's been the nature of my dreams about dad of late. Maybe I should call him and smooth things over.

We've never been super close, but we've had our moments. Take Summer 2016, for example. My father, freshly widowed and living alone in the house he and Mom had just purchased the year she died. She had cancer. I took that summer away from my kids and work and invested it in our relationship. It was a good summer and a great investment of time. Sadly, the closeness we shared that summer wore off within a year.

Dad went back into his shell. I got resentful. I didn't feel like I could share openly anymore without his judgment or religousy advice. It saddened me. Then he shot me a text in response to a rant I had sent him and it angered me. I didn't text him for awhile after that.

I'm thinking that distance, his retreat and my reaction to it are what's bothering me. Maybe reconciliation is in order.

HEMINGWAY

I recently took a keen interest in the lauded author Ernest Hemingway. It would seem that no amount of his creativity poured out onto the printed page could free him of his demons. He took his own life by shotgun in 1961, seven years before my birth. I was never an avid reader, growing up, and knew very little about the author. I knew of his Key West home, his affinity for liquor and that he'd won many accolades, including the Nobel Prize for Literature. I began to think I wanted to be him. I've dreamt about the Keys since my first visit in the early 2000's. Making my first trek to Key West some six years ago, I've been determined that I will one day live there. As an aspiring writer, I think I really wanted Hemingway to become my hero. But I knew so little about him. So I started reading.

First, was a novel in which he was the main character, written some 12 years ago by Michael Atkinson, titled "Hemingway Deadlights." It gave some keen insights into him as a person and international celebrity. Then, I did a little research into his suicide, which has since 1961 been dissected every way until Sunday. Fully psychoanalyzed posthumously by the experts, I feel like I understand him a little better.

Hemingway's father committed suicide with a pistol to his head the same way my maternal great-grandfather took his own life. Their self-inflicted deaths occurred within 15 or 16 years of each other, my Great Grandfather Roy Larson and the elder Hemingway. Just made that connection as I was writing this blog post. Anyway, that suicide obviously shook the author and influenced much of his work, including the book I'm currently reading, "The Garden of Eden," published posthumously in 1986.

I began to wonder why the influence of our fathers had become a recent theme in my life and my thinking. I shared a little of this with my daughter this morning after church.

FATHERHOOD

The theme was even present at this morning's worship service. I mean, the overarching theme of God, our Father, is always present, but Pastor Betsy was sharing some of her personal experiences with her father from childhood. He's still with us, as well, and was at the service today. Her story was one of love, service to the community and how his work had inspired her.

There I was sitting with my own daughter, considering the effects of fathers on their children. I feel very fortunate to have a great relationship with my youngest, Makenna. She took communion with me, a weekly ritual at our particular Methodist congregation, and we sat down. She immediately wrapped both arms around me in the most loving embrace. I simply closed my eyes and just absorbed it into my being. It felt so good through and through. I began to tear up under the weight of such unconditional love. Seeing the mist upon my eyes, she looks up and says, "It's okay to cry." I smiled, pointed at my eyes and said, "They're happy tears." She responded, "I know." And we sat there a moment longer.

Like I said from the outset, I hadn't completed this thought. These were just three seemingly random recent events that I tied together this morning under the heading "fatherhood." Still processing what it all means. All I know is, I love my daughter and I will always be here for her.