Father’s Day and Mother’s Day are bittersweet for me since my parents are no longer living. I had the good fortune to be born into a loving family, with parents who nurtured and encouraged me in everything I did. I had the double good fortune to marry a man who continued the love, nurturing and encouragement with me and with our two daughters. I don’t forget for one minute how lucky I am.
In honor of all of the fathers and in memory of my father, I am sharing one of my favorite stories about my dad.
Winter Coat
When I was a child my mother had agoraphobia. A little fact I didn’t become aware of until I was an adult and one of my aunts mentioned it matter-of-factly in a passing conversation. Well now, that certainly explained some things – like why she rarely left the house. I just thought it was normal for my father to do the grocery shopping and take us to the mall to buy school clothes. Mother’s phobia was not too severe, because she attended Mass every Sunday with the family, and would go out with my father. I think she was just anxious about venturing out on her own with four children in a big, unfamiliar city.
One year, when it was time for me to have a new winter coat (I’m sure my arms were at least four inches too long for the sleeves on the current one), my father took me downtown to a big department store to shop. This was unheard of. We lived in the suburbs and shopped at the mall. I had never even been downtown, that involved driving on the freeways, a task that my mother couldn’t comprehend. The freeways were my daddy’s domain. He rose early every morning and carpooled to the office with other men from his company. But unheard of or not, here we were on a Saturday morning making the trek downtown to buy me a winter coat, just me and Dad.
I have no recollection of the department store or even of selecting and purchasing the coat, a camel colored wool, which I still have. My memory of that day is of driving down the skyscraper-shaded streets of downtown, passing a huge public transportation bus and of seeing an old, sad, rheumy-eyed gentleman in a dark, too large suit, searching his palm for change to board the bus. That image has stayed with me as long as my camel-colored coat. It was, and is the saddest image I have ever seen in my life. That elderly man reached out and grabbed my heart. I hurt for him because he was alone, I wanted to help him select the right coins and take his arm and gently help him onto the bus. I wanted to sit with him and make sure he got to his destination. I looked at my father to see if he had seen the old man. Daddy was waiting for the light to turn green, but I know he noticed because the old man, in his dark suit, white shirt and fedora, could have been my father’s father, my grandfather. In an instant we drove past him and all that was left was his sad image permanently etched on my heart.
That event was over forty years ago. Mother is gone, Daddy followed her two years later, but the man from the bus stop is still here, along with my memories of my father who never let on that it was out of the ordinary to take me shopping for a winter coat.
