Yesterday would have been my father’s 90th
birthday, today my parents 57th wedding anniversary, and tomorrow 17
years since he died. Three major life
events in three consecutive days in January.
Quite the coincidence and convenient for us living to remember and
celebrate the life of someone who
gave me life. Each year during this time I
wear his King’s Point class ring that he devotedly wore until
his last day, and
commemorate his memory by having a nice steak dinner, something he always
enjoyed
and that I treated him to each year as an adult.
My father was not the ideal father; no
parent ever is really. We have
expectations for how they should be based on some grand ideals we see portrayed
on television or comparing them to other parents, but parents never quite live
up to that. Inherently they do love and
care for their children, it’s instinctual, but for children it’s not always
enough in some ways. My father was a workaholic,
spending most of my childhood at Rosecrans Realty, selling houses all over San
Diego. He was an alcoholic, which put
much strain on my parents’ marriage and gave our home a sense of
unpredictability and looming fear at what would be when dad would come home
drunk. It wasn’t an easy childhood and I
was thankful when my mother decided to get a divorce, something to this day she
has pangs of regret about, but as I tell her, was the best thing she could have
done for herself and her family.
For many years, I didn’t like my
father. I never wanted to spend time
with him yet he insisted on continuing to be our father, taking us out to
dinners, spending holidays with us, going fishing, etc. Some of these events led to him getting drunk
and leaving his sons to feel ashamed or in a dangerous situation when they were
far away and he was the driver of the car.
All of these things experienced as a child stay with you and you carry
them around into adulthood. The anger, disappointment and shame I felt toward
my dad was inside me until my early twenties.
As I came into adulthood and came to know who I was, I realized it was
time to make sense of my past, my feelings toward both my parents. When I
compared my upbringing with other people’s, I concluded that I did not have the
terrible childhood I imagined, that there were others out there who had it bad. My father, despite his flaws, always provided
for his family, we always had a roof over our heads, clothing and food. It was thanks to him that he opened my eyes
to the world and instill in me the sense of adventure when he took me to Europe
for three weeks when I was 14. So, when
I was 23 or 24, I forgave him and my mother for our less than perfect
upbringing, and I thanked them for all they had done for me. This may sound trite, but it helped me make
peace with the past and move on in life, as well as learn to love my father and
have a relationship with him. Not many
children can do that, hanging on to anger and disappointment and manifesting it
into their own lives. I was lucky to be
able to let it go.
My father and I never saw eye to eye on
many issues: me being gay, politics, race, etc.
He was not an easy person to deal with, but I had the courage to
confront his opinions and hold my own in our continued debates in the times we
had together. He had his rigid, conservative
opinions, but he was open to seeing other ideas. He loved people and was always cordial and
friendly with everyone. He could talk to anyone and did. He didn’t like that I was gay, and never acknowledged
that part of me. Being gay is just one
aspect of who I am, and he chose to look past that and focus on the other
aspects of me that he could take pride in.
That said, he never disrespected any of my gay friends and always
enjoyed meeting them and talking with them at great length. Parents never like to envision their children
as sexual beings so they aren’t comfortable always addressing the issue of
their children’s sexuality. When their
child is gay, it makes it more uncomfortable for them to deal with. That doesn’t mean I hid from him who I was,
we just found other things to talk about.
I woke up this morning wanting to write
about my father as I looked at his class ring on my finger. It’s a little tight, it’s bulky, but I wear
it for these three days to remember the person who was partially responsible
for me being here. My last words to my father, on his 73rd birthday
in the hospital were, “Dad, you’re a pain in the ass but I love you very
much.” He looked at me and with his
vivid blue eyes and told me he loved me very much too, and I knew that he truly
meant it. That was enough for me. In the end, despite all the shortcomings and
dashed expectations, I was loved by my father, and that’s all that we need to
know. There was nothing more to say,
feel or do. I left the hospital, got on
my plane the following day back to New York, at peace with my dad. Early the next day, as I was going to work,
he had a heart attack and died. I was
sad of course that my father was no longer, but at peace knowing that I was
loved by him, and that’s all that mattered.
Happy Birthday Bernie Toomey, wherever you may be.
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