There is a speck of land just off the Lake Erie coast line of Ohio called Kelley’s Island. The ferry took off not far from where I grew up so summer time meant at least one trip to explore and hike with the six of us. One time, perhaps the last time, when I was maybe four or five, we were eating at a restaurant that turned into the bar come happy hour and because of the sun or because of the time or because of some pain, this happy hour turned crowded and rowdy and it turned quickly. I remember it was dark inside the restaurant-now-bar and I remember Mom and Dad drinking light beers and I remember playing with my sisters — dancing, twirling around. And I remember a group of particularly sloshy men and I remember them getting louder. I remember being very small with all these grown ups around. I remember Mom saying it was almost time to go and Dad getting the check and paying with cash and hitting his knuckle twice on the bar as he did when something was wrapped up and me starting to make my way through the legs of drunks towards the door.
At my young age, I stood right at hips and was artistic in my squiggling. But I don’t remember the fight starting between the legs above me, I didn’t hear what was said or the escalation — I was too low to the ground — I didn’t see the fist thrown. I only remember a large hand on my chest pushing me up against a wall, a body slam, my head whiplashing against a wood panel. I remember hitting my head and then I remember looking up and see Dad with intense force slam a man up against the same wall. I saw his red face. I remember his words, “Don’t lay a hand on my daughter.” I remember the man looking very confused until he looked down at me in my jean shorts and French braid. I remember darting out of the restaurant-turned-bar into bright sunlight, like I had let someone down.
Dad could get mad, but I had never seen him touch another human. Mom knelt to the sidewalk close to me waiting for dad to pull himself together and walk out. There were humming shops all around us in the late afternoon, kids laughing with their ice cream and toffee, bike riders enjoy their day on the island. I don’t remember where my siblings were but they must have been right next to me. My eyes welled with tears, my arms crossed. My head hurt where I had bumped it, I could feel it starting to swell. Dad walked out huffed and asked if I was OK. I nodded and his hand reached for mine. The fight at the restaurant did not involve my dad, but because a man pushed me, Dad was immediately and inextricably involved. I don’t remember if we walked to get a treat or to the ferry but I know we didn’t speak anymore about it. We barely spoke at all.
My dad’s aggression could be harsh. This was the first time I had seen him blatantly protective of me. Admittedly, I felt more scared than saved. What is it when a parent feels the child’s pain and reacts with such force? His face had been red with rage, his crystal blue eyes focused. At the same time, perhaps my shaking body was holding the fear he was feeling. To be so small and so insignificant in a world of grown ups and older siblings had become a challenge for me — everyone was bigger, everyone knew more, everyone had more power. My muscles were weak, I was scrawny, itty bitty, skinny mini. I was so tiny, barely anyone noticed as I staggered through their bodies.
The first heart attack, or blockage as it became known in my head, took place when I was twelve, impressionable and confused. Dad was forty-four. It wasn’t discussed with us. It was: dad’s in the hospital. It was: he’s not ok. It was: dad could die.
My childhood paradox puzzled me — could I have fun if my dad was dying? I’d ask Miken in bed late in the night. Is he going to die? Maybe. She’d reply.
It seemed unreal when he came home from the hospital, unfazed by the event. Cars would be washed in our driveway and donuts still entered our house. Now that his cholesterol was managed with a white lipitor pill he took every day and fish oil he took every night, he could go about his business.
The little white pill, however, did not allow him to continue to smoke his white cigarettes in his white garage in the evenings. It was a habit, formed in the seventies when nicotine ruled. It was: tastes good, like a cigarette should Winston ads.
He had to quit. So he did.
But the little white pill didn’t save him from another episode. This one a little less dramatic. A little less traumatic. A little more information. I got to go to the hospital. I got to see the heart catheter in his leg that scoped up his artery to his softened heart. We got a demonstration of the second stent that was placed to re-build the artery walls surrounding his heart. It blew up like a small balloon, the kind you’d see at the county fair, long, cylinder like.
It would save him. That second balloon and that little white pill together. They were good.
There was an impression from Dad, when his face turned red and his voice raised to the gods, when his vitriol coursed through each of us, that rage was not the core emotion erupting. Even when his reaction was not directed at me, my reaction to it wasn’t anger. It was fear. I was scared. And now, nearly 30 years later, I wonder if he was scared too. How often is fear masked by anger? Deeper still, how often is our fear serving as protection?
His clear pill organizer sat on the vanity in the blue bathroom, opened to Saturday. Monday was the first day I entered the house after they died. He’d taken Lipitor every day for 26 years. He rode his bike. He quit smoking. He drank red wine. His hair laid like soft feathers, gently on his slightly over-sized head, his ears tilting back at an odd angle that made it impossible to wear any type of glasses. He knew how to make me laugh; I was hoping for the same laughs as I touched this pill. Every day, he fought to be here.
As I’m writing this, I’m picking my nails; my cuticles are bleeding. There is a masochism implicit to bringing them back to life in this way. And that is the fantasy: to bring them back to life. If I just do it good enough, I can hold onto them forever. I know people will tell me they live inside me, and of course, that is one dynamic that is true. But their full complexity, their full humanity, what I brought out in them and what they brought out in me — our dynamic — cannot be revived.
But can it be protected?
I’m not sure how to preserve him — how to preserve them — except through words. There is a weaving through tangled legs, an untethering that is required, a letting go, a sharing pieces of me and parts of them. But, I can only braid fragments. I don’t know how to explain the complexity of each one of them while protecting my love for them. I don’t know how to protect my energy and share this story. I don’t know how to preserve my grief and live abundantly. I don’t know how to say I am proud of myself for waking up every day, for continuing to breathe while longing to be with them.
There is a tension as I build this. To protect their humanity, to preserve my energy, to not reduce them to characters on a page. To create the safety necessary to push back aggressively against societal ideas that want to erode my grief, take my little white writing pill every day, and to fight to be here.
So beautiful, so honest. Thank you sharing with us.
Tears lay down my face as I read this. I don’t think I’ve ever read love like this