So the other evening Teri and I were sitting in the office at out respective computers, doing something like surfing the net or writing email, when Trevor walked in and start sniffing us. First he came up behind my back, and sniffed around my neck and shoulders. Then he went over to Teri, and did the same to her. Its a bit unnerving to have a 10 year old walk up behind you and start smelling you, but we are used to our son being slightly eccentric. (For instance, he will not refer to either Teri or myself as Mom or Dad. He only calls us by our first names) Since it was near his bed time I think we both thought he was tired, and trying to get our attention so we could tuck him in bed. Rather than be upset, we both stopped and turned to him asking “What are you doing?”

“I’m sniffing,” he said with a smile. “Sniffing for guilt.”

Over on Facebook, a lot of people I know are replacing their photo with one of their father, in honor of Father’s Day. Its a wonderful conceit, sort of like putting up a flag on flag day (which we did btw), but it is not one I feel like doing. This post is about why.

My father was an interesting man. Strong, handsome, sharp as a tack, and oftentimes quite funny. He grew up a honest-to-goodness real cowboy, like the rest of his family. A tough independent bunch of hombres if you ever saw ’em. Unlike the rest of the family, however he also looked the part. His looks and his manner branded him the quintessential cowboy, the hero of every western. Had he grown up is Southern California, there’s a good chance he would have ended up in the movies. Unlike the popular cowboys of radio and the silver screen, Dad was also a “real” cowboy. He knew how to ride, knew how to manage cattle, he competed in rodeo events, and he won a gold medal in the FFA nationals his senior year in high school.

Growing up, he cast a big shadow.

Dad was a good father in terms of making sure there was meat on the table. He worked hard so I could go to college, and do well in school. I never lacked for much materially as a child, thanks to a large part by his efforts. I never went hungry, never lacked for shoes, clothes, coats, that sort of thing. Now mom worked too, so it wasn’t all him, but he did provide for his family.

He also was happy to lead us on summer vacations, whether it was sailing in the Lido 14, or fishing in a creek. Dad was always game for taking us to the great outdoors.

This, and many other things made my father a great father. I respect him for his efforts, and I wish he were still alive today so I could thank him for them.

When Trevor was born, and it was my turn to be a father, I had to really think about what I wanted to be as a father. Since that day (a bit over 10 years ago) I have tried to follow my father’s footsteps in terms of leadership, in terms of visiting the great outdoors, and in terms of making sure my son does not want for anything materially. But I have also been careful to not be like my father in some ways.

My son will know he is loved by his father. It will never be a question for him. Sure he will think me an ass at times (I am an ass at times), but he will always know my love. Likewise he will always know when I fail. When I have done wrong, especially when I have caused him pain, he will hear my heartfelt apology. I need him to know that being a man is not about being right all the time, but about owning your successes, and your failures, for surely there is no man alive who does not carry both. Finally, my son will always know my support. Mind you he will always know my criticism too. If he pisses off a gang of hoodlums, and they are right outside our door demanding his blood, I will call him a stupid ass, but I will do this while I am loading up my rifle. There is no direction he can go I will not back him, as long as he is not harming himself or others. Even if I think it is a damn stupid thing to do, I will support him. Why? Because no man can see the future. If Lady Gaga had approached her father 5 years ago and said, “Dad. I want to dress up in freaky outfits, and sing bizarre pop songs,” I’m quite sure his response would have been WTF??!!! Now because of her dream, he gets to choose which house he will live in this month.

My father (and my mother) taught me a lot, and gifted me greatly, but when it came down to how I wanted to parent, I needed to toss some of their ideas out the window. I can only hope that my own son, when he becomes a father, will have the wisdom to do the same.

I had a dream last night about my father. He and I were doing a late spring hike to the top of a peak in the High Sierra’s. Not all that safe a proposition as there was a lot of snow, and avalanches were a concern. As we went along, he counseled me with his “worried” voice. I know that tone, I use it all the time with my son when I think he’s about do to something stupid, and I want to help him make a good decision.

The dream left me with the distinct impression that he was even now looking after me, trying to keep me from doing stupid stuff (good luck with that). Even now, it is his voice I hear in my head when I’m about to do something dangerous, like ride a skateboard. “Now son…” he would say, and nothing else was necessary. The tone alone was sufficient to carry the message.

It’s been 8 months since he passed away, and I am now at the point where I am starting to miss him. Near Easter we realized we needed to cut down one of the trees in the back yard. I found myself wishing I could call him, and ask him to come down and help with the tree. Had he been alive, I’m sure he would have turned down such a request (his health was not all that great near the end), but I still felt the inclination.  Funny how after someone dies we try and fit them in our world anyway.

Yesterday, my father died. It was not sudden. We had been expecting it since mid May when he was told he only had a few weeks to live.

Beside the grief, and all the family phone calls (why do my sisters and I need to savor every detail?), and such, there is something else I am feeling right now, at that is relief. You see, from this day on, no one will expect me to have a normal relationship with my father. And that is a relief.

You, out there. Yes you. Chances are, you have or had a relationship with your father. It may have been a great one (I hope so) or it may have been a crummy one with alcohol, abuse and all kinds of other ugly stuff, but you still have one.  You still have a relationship. If people ask about your father you can actually answer. “Oh, he’s in Antwerp, on sabbatical,” or “He’s at home watching Fox news right now, and cursing at the tv.” What your father is doing doesn’t matter, so long as you know. And that’s what you have, that knowing.

Me, I didn’t know. Only it wasn’t just me. It was pretty much everybody, even people who lived with him. That “not knowing” thing was pretty awkward to. It meant I didn’t like to talk about him because every time I did I would have to explain to one of you “normals” why I don’t know anything about my father. Why the simple act of trying to call him on the phone could leave me shaking in frustration. Why he would occasionally hang up on me because there were certain topics that he simply could not talk about (with no way to know in advance which topic was the “bad” one). Why he never called (he called us twice in the 12 years I’ve know Teri). Why we never saw him at Christmas or the holidays. Why I finally stopped even sending him birthday cards.

You see, you could never have a relationship with my father. There was no “there” there.  You could talk to him, and sometimes have engaging conversations about something in his interest, but at some point you’d start to realize there was a limit. A line at which he would not cross; a lack of empathy or emotional commitment. Since I ride the bus frequently, I often talk to strangers. Talking with my father was exactly like talking with a stranger. The same rules, the same expectations. You could talk blithely about any topic, but not in detail, and not with any emotional depth. Poking fun at Obama was okay, but the same was not true for poking fun of prop 8. The weather was always a safe topic. We talked about the weather a lot.

One of the things we do in America is to not really deal with the issues around mental health. If you have a mentally ill member in your family, then that topic is not acceptable in public. People do not understand, or want to, as near as I can tell. They’ll give you pity, but not empathy. It’s too scary, or too weird, or too whatever. Well there is mental illness within my family, and thankfully I have some pretty ballsy nephews who are not interested in covering it up. Quite the opposite, in fact.

In my father’s case, he was likely a narcissist (the clinical term is Narcissistic Personality Disorder). I say likely as I really do not know, and mental illness are notoriously difficult to determine outside of strict tests. Regardless, the name means very little, the effect is what is important. Living with my father was like living with a stranger.

My sisters and myself tried all kinds of ways to get our father to care about us, to act more like a dad. They never worked. Its possible he really wanted to be more loving, and was simply unable. Worse still, because of his mental illness, he was unable to see himself as the cause. It was always someone else’s fault. So even if he could understand the underlying problem, he was incapable of seeing the only possible solution.

So I went for years without talking to my father. We hardly spoke of him at home, and my son only got to meet him by the slimmest of luck.  He never really knew the rest of his grandchildren, and worse still, he didn’t seem to care about them.

So now that he is dead, I’m in the rather envious position of no longer having to explain about my father. No one expects me to carry on a relationship with him anymore.  I don’t have to take parents aside and say, “we can’t really talk to him” when questions come up about grandpa (we’re lucky also in that we have two sets of  parents which are normal, and with which we have normal relationships). All I have to do is sadly smile as say, “I’m sorry, he’s passed away,” and the expectations end.