blog.deanland.com

A Very Strange Fatherís Day

No cards came in the mail this year. Not a surprise, not a letdown.

The ex had warned me that the kids had sent a card to their grandfather, but none to me, she chuckled. Or maybe the better put, she cackled.

Knowing, as I do, that she is the driving force behind most snail mail initiative for both kids, I took this into consideration and accepted it as the state of things. So be it.

My son sent me a nice, baseball-themed card-via-the net. I got a big kick out of that.

My daughter, who reminds people on her own websiteís calendar to remember their fathers on Fatherís Day, apparently was too busy on her job to give me a call. Well, she does have a Summer job, she is working, and she is 16. So Iíll give her a pass on this one.

There are numerous ways to bemoan the state of being a non-custodial parent. But the cold fact is this: I hate not being with them more often, in fact, not sharing their young lives with them on a daily basis as had been the plan, the expectation, when they were born. But shit happens. Life goes on, changes occur, and kids are plenty resilient.

Thereís no question as to the love we have for each other, the caring, the communication. As they get into their teen years thereís less direct communicating, as they have their lives and are discovering, investigating, learning and doing the various things that teens do. I remember, after all, I was once a teen, too. Even if, indeed, we were all together in the same house, the same city, same state ñ theyíd still be teenagers, theyíd still have teen issues and teen orientations, teen way-of-mind. This is who they are at this time. Again, so be it, and I am comfortable that they are of sound mind and make good judgments.

It is also better not to know some of what goes on in a teenís life. Remember when you were a teen? Did you share everything with your parents? Did you feel a need to maybe be a little more apart from them in certain aspects of your life? Adolescence is what it is. It isnít easy, it can be fun, but it must not be confused with a cakewalk. Would you want to relive your teen years??

You know your kids are teenagers when your birthday and Fatherís Day go by without phone calls. A friend asked me the other day if my children, both in their teens now, had become evil, alien monsters from outer space.

No, I replied, their mother has that space totally occupied, no room for any others.

Death Gets In the Way

Susan and I had made plans to have a Fatherís Day brunch with my mother and father this afternoon. We liked the afternoon idea, rather than dinner, since there would be the final game of this weekendís interleague meeting of the World Champion Yankees and those also-rans from, appropriately named, Flushing.

I had gone to yesterdayís game, which the Yanks won, as they had the night before. Shea is such a toilet of a stadium (again, note the Flushing reference). Over 40 planes went by during the game. Those planes are even louder than the Met fans, trying to urge on their hapless heroes.

So Susan and I were supposed to go to the city to meet my mother and father, but death got in the way. Death is a part of life, and when death comes, all things seem to stop in order to react and respond to the event.

My Uncle Sam passed away late on Thursday night. Heíd been quite ill for a long time, and this came as no sudden shocker. As it was described to me, he simply closed his eyes, and then he was gone. So, despite so much illness and discomfort and the past few months of what had to be utter misery, he did pass on in some degree of comfort. My mother told me heíd had a good day before the end came.

That seems to be the case a great deal of the time.

I have very warm and fond memories of Uncle Sam. He was a Dentist, and took care of my teeth and my sistersí teeth when we were little kids. He had a dental assistant/office clerk who had the ultimate mixed Brooklyn/Queens accent. My sisters and I would go into hysterics hearing her mispronounce words and store names.

Uncle Sam gave us sugarless gum after filling cavities or cleaning our teeth or giving us checkups. One time, when he and my aunt and cousins came to the house to visit us he brought a big box jam-packed with oodles of little wrapped candies.

Uncle Sam, I asked him, you always give out sugarless gum! How come the sugared candy? With that big smile and his ever-present Ronald Coleman mustache, he answered, ìbusiness is down, I have to get more patients. Iím practicing on you, my relatives, to see if it works!î That was followed by a robust laugh, and then he picked me up and gave me a bear hug.

I might have been seven or eight years old when that happened. Yet I remember it, clear as can be.

Uncle Sam was a bright light. A big smile, a great sense of humor, a dapper man. Also, he was quite the knowledgeable one when it came to religious issues.

I had an Aufruf before my wedding, and the rabbi asked if there was a family member who could partake in part of the service. My father had long abandoned any activities relating to the religion, and there were very few male relatives in our small family. My mother suggested we asked Uncle Sam, as he was sharp as could be in this area. There I was, thirty years old, and had no idea that my Uncle Sam was knowledgeable about the religion.

Sam got up and did his thing at the Aufruf, and he did it with such panache! It seemed to bring him much joy, which was like icing on the cake.

Afterwards, my father joked that weíd brought in the ìfamily pro,î our secret weapon, to wow them at the Aufruf!

We later (the next day, actually) gave him the honor of cutting the challah and saying the blessing over the bread at the wedding reception. But that was small potatoes (well, not really potatoes! Another starch!) compared to his breezing through the Hebrew in the Saturday service at the Aufruf. He did it like a champ, and with full spirit.

To say I appreciated it is an understatement, and to see the joy he got from it was that much the better.

Sam was a New York Jew from modest circumstances who went to Dental School at Howard University in Washington, D.C., a predominantly Black college. He built a Dental practice in Richmond Hill, in Queens (where Phil Rizutto comes from!), and moved to Florida on the early sixties. Passing the Florida Dental Boards has always been tough, and it is often said that the test for those seeking to move in from other states is even harder.

Be that as it may, he passed the test, and my aunt and uncle and cousins moved to Florida when I was about eleven or twelve years old. He built up a practice there, specializing in Geriatric Dentistry (hey, it was Miami! What else could make more sense?).

Many years later he retired and pursued painting and gardening, both of which he was quite successful at, as we know from the paintings and the clippings that have graced many of the familyís homes.

I couldnít make it down to Florida for the funeral. My parents went, thus no brunch with them to celebrate Fatherís Day.

Sunday was also their anniversary. 56 years for them, and more to come. When they return from Florida, the end of this coming week, we will reschedule, and attempt to have a belated Fatherís Day/Anniversary celebration.

So we had a very quiet Father's Day. We watched some of the Red Sox - Atlanta game on WTBS. We got the local paper and the Sunday Times. We dropped off a car insurance payment. We dared to go to Costco on a Sunday, where we got a rotisserrie chicken rather than have to cook dinner.

Then we watched the final Yanks-Mets game on ESPN. Very sad. Now I have insomnia, and what better to do with Insomnia, then to update the blog?

If not for some sleepless nights, there'd be much less blogging!

Next year should be, one hopes, a more joyous Father's Day.