Monday, October 11, 2021

I Still Can't Believe He Said That

"...how else is the son to continue living if he must not also forget—that no matter how hard we try we can never entirely know our fathers.”  -- Hisham Matar, The Return: Fathers, Sons, and the Land in Between

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Sometime in my late teens or early twenties, I ran across a story about a controversy that happened with The Beatles in the 1960's, something about being more popular than Jesus, and church-going people being offended to the point of protesting and burning records.

I am a lifelong Beatles fan, but I was a late arrival to the party, born three years after they split up.

But Dad, though...he was legit.

He was a young teen during the British Invasion, collecting new music on vinyl, both singles and albums, relics he kept the rest of his life.

I must have asked Dad about this story of people protesting The Beatles, because I remember him telling me that John Lennon had replied to an interview question by making an observation about young people's church attendance compared to their devotion to The Beatles, followed by the poorly worded comment about being more popular than Jesus.

Dad was no wilting lily when it came to a defense of his faith, but it was clear to me in this conversation that he felt the unfortunate comment had been taken out of context and overblown by people looking to be offended. Of course, he himself was an ardent Beatles fan when this comment was made, so he wasn't exactly an unbiased observer of the controversy. Who knows whether his response would have been as moderated if this type of remark had come from a celebrity he wasn't a fan of, or perhaps even some entertainer whose work he really did find threatening.

But the part of this conversation I remember the best was something Dad said that shocked me. Nearly 30 years later, I still don't know what to make of it.

Dad's story about the John Lennon quote came to a head with his response to all the hullabaloo at the time, which apparently stirred up his own church and his parents. He didn't say how pointed this issue became in his household, but he did tell me that he told his parents, "You guys aren't throwing away my stuff."

(First of all: "You guys" is exact and correct. This was ages before he ever dreamed of living in Texas, and he would never have said "y'all" at that stage of his life.)

But what he said to his parents stunned me. I didn't react at all, just listened, let him finish his story, and I guess moved on to other things. I don't remember ever speaking of this again.

But that statement: "You guys aren't throwing away my stuff."

I still can't believe it.

I can assure you, without the slightest exaggeration, I have never, in childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, ever addressed my parents in this way.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I guess I gave my parents as much bad attitude as any other kid, but openly directing them that they would not have their way in a situation taking place under their roof while I was a child under their authority? 

Never, literally never. 

When Dad told me he had said this to his parents, my immediate sense was how unthinkable it would have been for me to ever say such a thing to him. Had I ever addressed him in this way, I am confident he would have lost control. It would have been an absolute scene. And, without painting an unfair picture, I would say that I'm not even sure he would have been able to control himself physically if I had made such a statement to him.

At least that's what I thought, and I was never willing to test it. And yet, Dad shared this story with me, apparently without the slightest sense of irony, seemingly without noticing the clash between the way he had related to his parents and the way I related to him. 

The very first thing that came to my mind never seemed to occur to him at all. 

When it came to his responsibility and authority as a parent, Dad was not one to entertain challenges to the order of things as he saw them, at least while we were children in his home. He did shift to adult boundaries for his authority when we kids grew up and moved out, but there was still never a sense of his having "chilled out" about this kind of thing.

Most of us mellow over time, and it's true that the older version of Dad was more laid back than his younger self had been, in the years when people are climbing and conquering, trying to prove themselves in this world and fearing that any false move could spell doom for the future. Most of us would do some things differently if we were changing our children's diapers again, with the perspective we have after our kids no longer need us for everything.

So, yes, Dad and I did have a more relaxed relationship later on, with some of my anxiety about displeasing him having dissipated in the mix of my own marriage, parenthood, and career. And yet, this was still a conversation I never returned to, a subject I was never willing to broach with him. It was something I felt I deserved an answer to, but I was never willing to seek it. 

To have borne the strain of being afraid to tell him off a few key times when I really wanted to, and then to realize he had taken this liberty himself when he was a teen, only to make clear a generation later that this same freedom was not available to me was...embittering.

Our family was always big on movie quotes, and one of Dad's favorites was from The Princess Bride:

"Get used to disappointment."

I suppose I made peace some time ago with never really having a clear answer to my questions about this conversation: "Why was I obligated to grant to you a level of deference you did not extend to your parents? Why did the needle have to swing so far the other way when it came to me? It wasn't easy to respect such a difficult boundary, and that burden was not limited to my childhood."

On another vein, is it possible I misread Dad to some degree? Is it possible the kind of pushback he gave his parents, and I could never muster up to give him, might have actually been a good thing in our relationship? Could it be that there was more room for rebellion than I thought, and I just couldn't see it, and he didn't know how to show me, or just never thought he had to tell me? Was I wrong to think he wouldn't have been able to process it?

No answers to these questions are likely to ever come, and I'm old enough now that it's OK.

Along with those questions would have to come the follow-up questions: How much defiance can authority absorb before it is no longer authoritative? How much can a child be allowed to push back before they have breached a barrier that will put their own character at risk?

I suppose humanity will wrestle with those questions forever, and I'm sure I will wrestle with them from now on, whenever I think about Dad.

But as I continue to process my 47 years with Dad, another movie quote comes to mind, but not from a movie Dad ever saw: The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, a story of a woman who is wrestling with her relationship with her aging mother.

Toward the end of the movie, one of the older ladies says, referring to Sandra Bullock's character, "She doesn't know sh*t, and what she does know she's making the worst of." This quote has been a salvation for me since I first heard it, a bookend against Dad's mysteries, giving me at least some reassurance that I probably have little idea of everything that went into making him who he was, and I might very well be making the worst of what little I know or imagine.

Yes, the perfect resolution at the end of this movie is idealistic, and probably unrealistic for many, including me and Dad, who never had the kind of full-disclosure conversation that filled in all the blanks, made sense of everything, and ended in a parade with everyone smiling and embracing. But still, unrealistic doesn't have to mean undesirable, uninspiring, or unworthy of being fantasized over. 

I think I will always imagine that conversation in which this gap is bridged, all is made well, all tension is dissolved, and I never feel afraid about anything again with Dad.

"...we look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come." 

This phrase in the creed often brings tears to my eyes, and I think this is why. Perhaps for the first time, there is something tangible I am banking on happening when that day comes, something that can't happen here, and was probably never going to happen here. 

When things are left unsaid and undone, there is so much more hoped for than some abstract sense of "seeing" someone again.

Or maybe a conversation won't even be needed; maybe it will all just wash away at first sight.

I want it, either way.

And then, as I write this, what comes into my ears but the beauty of the John Lennon song "In My Life" from The Beatles' Rubber Soul album, and tears come, right here in this lobby where I am waiting for my own son to come back out from his appointment.

Of these moments and memories and questions, Dad, I sing along with John, whose smart-a** comment in 1966 led you to be a smart-a** to your parents: 

"...I know I'll often stop and think about them; in my life, I love you more."

And, Dad: I still cannot believe you said that...