The words highlighted above are the perfect summation of how I feel about my father. However, we are bound like a book, and I believe our words, like a novel, are already written. Read this post which is so dear to my heart and let me know your thoughts. I think anyone with a father can relate somehow to this piece. Maybe Ethers, you can give me SOME hope? If we keep using the book analogy...and the picture above....the page is not fully printed. Maybe there's time to add more text to it.

Dear Ether, 

The first man I ever fell in love with was my father.  I suppose you could technically call it love at first sight. 

He was born in Longmeadow, MA (a small, peaceful town where homes are from the 18^th century and have plaques proudly boasting their build dates on their spotless facades).  He was the eldest of three boys and since this is an anonymous blog, I will attest to the fact that he was by far the smartest.  He excelled at everything he did and when it came time to go to University he was courted by every Ivy League school (Harvard even offered him a yearly stipend for his pocket money).  He became one of Eli’s men and went to Yale on full scholarship, became a Skull and Bone and sailing through college with perfect grades and varsity sports under his belt, went to Yale Law School.  If you look at notebooks from his time at college (this was before laptops) his handwriting is in perfect script and there is not a cat-scratch in them.  Of course after graduating from Yale Law, he went to one of the finest firms in the country in Manhattan, got a stunning apartment in a brownstone on the Upper East Side and worked for five years, toiling away being told he’d probably be made the youngest partner if he kept up his fervor.  However, he was unhappy.  He was a writer through and through.  And, lucky, brilliant Dad, and his writing partner, wrote a script and sent it to Hollywood with their fingers crossed.  And guess what?  They landed a job on a TV show immediately.  

Oh, of course there are many more things about him.  That he was perpetually youthful looking which would serve him well as he aged (people often ask him where he hides his portrait).  That he has never had a health problem in his life (knock wood).  That he has always had a love of cars, so much so that when my grandparents, in the 1950’s bought a pink Cadillac (yes indeed) with white leather seats and, amazingly, a record player (the latest and greatest in technology—if they only knew what the future would hold) he sat for 7 hours in it mesmerized.  He says when he closes his eyes he can still see his feet not being able to touch the ground and can smell the interior. 

And so, the tale continues.  My father comes to L.A., works on very famous comedy shows, meets my mother, 2 years later they get married, a year later they have my older brother and then 2 years later I’m born—and my love affair begins.  It’s unfair, really.  It was my mother who gave up a hugely powerful job as a producer, rare for a woman in those days, to become a stay at home mom, and become the bad guy.  My dad worked 12-hour days trying to squeeze out jokes sometimes at 2am (not an easy task).  Often I wouldn’t see him at all.  But when I would hear that car pull into the carport, I would run downstairs and throw my arms around his legs.  

This is what I remember.  He always had a brown briefcase with gold numeric lock keys and never wore a suit.  He always had a stern look on his face and disappeared upstairs.  It was only later did I find out that he was so stressed out and filled with anxiety that he needed to be left alone and decompress.  As an adult and a writer I understand this now.  But then, it wounded me.  And that made me want him more.  And this could be why I have so many attachment issues with men.  But that’s a whole other round we can discuss another time Ethers.  Through the years and his many styles of eyeglasses (whoa, there were some beauts’) I sought his approval.  My mother was so hard on us and was the school marm while my father was the hero who swept through and was quiet and calm.  On weekends we would go to the beach or he would read “The Arabian Nights” or Dickens to us.  I had a canopy bed and he would sit in the dark improvising the most masterful tales until he lulled me to sleep.  The only requisite was that I give him a topic.  

As I became a teenager and he became a very successful drama writer and producer (and eventually and Emmy Award winner) we became wealthier, he calmed down, but no matter what I could do, the man I was in love with never indulged me with pride.  He always was a critic.  I would show him my writing and it would be scarred with red marks.  I’d be talking to him and he’d correct my grammar.  I’d be playing soccer and  could see him peripherally on the sideline with a puckered look on his face and screaming “Come on One of 365, get in there!”  He did always tell me how beautiful I was—even when I had braces, bad eyebrows, spots and frizzy hair.  But I never felt like I was ever going to be good enough.  I was never going to be a savant like him.  I’d already failed and I wasn’t even 18.  I certainly wasn’t going to get courted by Ivy League schools or become a lawyer.  I tried everything to make up for that.   I killed myself in school to the point of exhaustion.  I forced myself to become a straight-A student when it wasn’t natural for me.  I went to summer school and did extra work to make up for, god forbid, a B or B+.  I joined every team possible and became a varsity tennis and soccer player.  But my math failed me and I failed my SAT’s in math.  2 hours of my life, after 13 years of school,  and I didn’t get into any of the colleges I wanted.  I ended up going to a top 25 small liberal arts college in CT (a pathetic attempt to try and re-live what my father had in New Haven) and fell apart there.  I became angry and depressed and slept all day and never attended classes.  I had bad relationships with men who I didn’t like let alone even love and was pained and lonely.  That’s when I bolted for England.  You’ll know the rest of that story eventually.  This is about my dad.  

To this day we bang heads at every occasion.  He’s retired now and is always around to judge.  He’ll comment on everything from weight to writing.  He’s yet to ever look at a piece of my work and ever say it was good; he always has a qualm with it.  He’s even sent back an E-mail I wrote him with corrections for me to fix.  When we fight we are both so similar.  We’re cutting and mean.  But it’s so funny…….I try to be intelligent when I fire at him because even in an argument I want to earn his respect.  So Ethers, you must be asking, “This is the first man she ever loved?”  Oh yes.  And I compare everyone I ever meet to him.   Even myself.  Because to me, he is what I would have liked to have been.  He is a constant reminder of, what I see, as perfection.  Yes, of course I’m no fool and see that he has so many character flaws.  But his achievements and his health and his wit and ease with himself–I would have dreamt for that to have been passed down to me.  Whenever I meet an old colleague of his or a college mate, they always say he was the greatest guy they ever met.  My friends all swooned over him.  I once asked him why he was so easy going to those he didn’t know as well or care as much for and he said, “Because I don’t love them.”  I guess that’s why I have such a fucked up view of love too.  He feels he has to be the bad guy to get the point across and get the irons in the fire.  I just wish instead of irons being in the fire, that there would have been just a tremendous glow and warmth exuding from it.

I don’t know what I will do when the time comes when my father is out of my life.  He’s so intertwined with it.  My brother resembles my dad AND my mom.  But I’m a spitting image of him.  It’s funny, everyday I have to look in the mirror and see the man who I love more than anything.  The first man I ever loved.  But also the man who will probably always haunt me.  When I close my eyes and I picture my father I see him sitting in the backyard on a sunny day.  He’s tan with dark hair, trim and in one of our lovely wooden chairs with the dog at his feet.  As always, he’s immersed himself in a novel.  I stare at him through the French windows of our sunroom and I see him look up from time to time putting his finger in the page where he’s left his last paragraph, and he closes his eyes.  Is he soaking up the sun?  Is he worried?  Is he thinking about life?  Thinking, possibly of ME?  And then I see him give his head a small shake and open the book again looking down once more to read.  This is the first man I ever loved.  And to my dying day, even when I am old and he is dust, I will always wonder what he really thought of me.  

If he could read this, which he never will, I would beg for his forgiveness for failing him and I would tell him that the only reason I ever stood up to him was to try and earn his respect.  But inside I was crumbling.  And if he had said the word or just put his arms around me, he would have silenced my vicious tongue.  Every year that passes I know that we are too far-gone to ever be what I had hoped for.  He really has always been the old dog that can’t learn a new trick.  And part of this is my embracing being an adult and learning acceptance.  But I still look at him through the same eyes I had as a little girl, for he hasn’t really changed much, and I walk around haunted by my first love. 

Dedicatedly yours, 

—One of 365

How lucky. How very lucky. This is how an aged couple should feel after years of marriage. But many are bitter. Many haven't embraced in forever. Hands have become claws that scratch at one another---they are no longer for holding.

Dear Ethers, 

My grandparents met when they were 15 and 17 years old.  They are now 93 and 95.  Imagine.  That’s a long time to be with someone.  My grandfather was extraordinarily handsome.  My grandmother, though not as pretty in the face, was extremely attractive.  They dressed beautifully, went out with the chic crowd, and enjoyed a good martini.  My grandmother was a singer and was given a brilliant offer to go to Broadway.  My grandfather, a cartoonist, was asked to go to Hollywood to work for Disney.  Both had to give up their dreams to stay with each other because they felt it was unfair to make the other choose.  Foolish if you ask me, but those were the days of gallantry I suppose. 

My grandfather opened an advertising agency where he always drew his campaigns (it kept him artsy enough)and my grandmother had 3 sons—and she never stopped humming a tune.  If you asked them in their 30’s, 40’s, 50’s and 60’s if they were happy with their choice of not being rich or possibly famous, they would be smitten and say yes.  But now wizened and bitter, they have hated each other for at least 30 years.  

I have never known my grandmother to have ever slept in the same room as my grandfather and my grandmother dutifully cooks and cleans, but barely utters a word to him and leaves to play bridge with her girlfriends.  They constantly bring up old memories and argue and blame one another for their downfalls.  

My grandfather took to drawing celebrities (he is an amazing artist) and getting them autographed.  He has JFK, Babe Ruth, one of the Pope’s—you name it, he’s got it.  He’s worked years to make that collection.  When my grandmother is mad she tells him to “Go downstairs and trace something.”  And when he gets mad at her, he tells her that she’s never done a damned thing with her life.  I think he forgets that she ran his business (was his accountant) and raised his 3 boys.  

The irony is they look 20 years younger than they are and are (knock wood) in perfect health.  They drive, they live in their same house (no assisted living)—my grandfather plays rounds of golf on the weekends.    It’s like they are trying as hard as they can to beat the other one out from dying. Do you know how many widows would kill to have their husbands back from the dead and to be able to live their very last day with their partner?  Nope.  These two are so ungrateful.

When I asked my grandmother why she never divorced him, she said she felt it was too late.  Too late to leave and she felt too sorry for him.  He wouldn’t survive without her.   But I think she wouldn’t survive without him.  I don’t think she CAN remember life without him in it. 

They have never been warm and fuzzy people.  They’ve always been sharp, smart, kind but not empathetic.  I know they love me, but they are critical, never gave me gifts and when I stayed with them, were always trying to “improve” me.  I love them with all of my heart, but they always scare me.  They remind me of what could happen when love goes wrong.  When you stay with the wrong person and it becomes “too late.”  I think you become hardened, angry, critical, and your body can’t accept a hug because it hasn’t felt one in so long it’s forgotten the motion. 

I don’t know how much time I have left with them.  They live in Massachusetts and I see them maybe twice a year.  I smile when my grandmother tells me she loves “Sex and the City” or when my grandfather tells me he enjoys playing on the internet.  Can you imagine what these people have seen in their lifetime?  But, I’m afraid they can’t appreciate any of it.  All they can see is red.  Red for stealing each other’s lives.  They really are old dog’s that can’t be taught new tricks.  All that’s on their minds is what could have been. 

I look at English gent.  He has a beautiful face.  So did my grandfather.  I met him when he was a teenager.  So did my grandmother.  We gave up a lot to be together.  So did they.  And we aren’t even 60 and we already are seeing red.  I don’t want to see my hands, like my grandmother’s, filled with hose like veins sticking up from her flesh, clenching her fists while her diamond wedding ring glints in the light, furious. I don’t want to live with a man who is my roommate but also my gatekeeper from any other life. But, just like my grandmother, I can’t imagine life without him.  

Sometimes I see them, arms linked, walking down the street.   They have the same gait.  She’s speaking into his ear and he’s nodding.  And I know that they’d be dead long ago without each other.  Maybe it is the competitive fight that keeps them alive—but there is a lot of love and history too.  I wonder what my grandmother would have looked like on Broadway?  Her stage name was “Ethel Evans.”  And my grandfather?  What wonderful drawings he might have made with those talented hands.  But, then I wouldn’t be here to tell this tale.  For me, it worked out.  But for them—sometimes I wish they had parted ways and had their chance in the limelight instead of sitting in the dark grinding their teeth with anger.  I wonder who will go first—and whoever does, I know the other will, somewhere in their heart (as devastated as they will be) feel that once again, their show was stolen from them except this time they’ll have no one to be angry at any longer.

Dedicatedly yours,

—One of 365