"Whatever you are you're going to be, whatever you are is alright with me..."

Father's Day....yes indeedy, right up there with Mother's Day in my book.....I adore my husband and the father he has always been to our two sons.  I think even they appreciate the job he's done and continues to do.  I have no misgivings about his abilities as a father and I always look for ways to celebrate that.

My own father? Now that's another story. As I have said before, I believe our parents did the best job they could with the resources at their disposal. I don't doubt that they loved us. There are nonetheless huge gaps in the father-daughter relationship as experienced by me.

I was always fascinated listening to my friends talk about their relationships with their fathers. It was like eavesdropping on another world. I could no more relate to their lives than I could to Cinderella and her stepsisters.  Friends? Ask for advice? Go to for help? Outings together? You've got to be kidding.  What was all that about?  My father was the man who paid for everything and never let you forget it. Drove a company car, traveled a lot for work. Never exercised, smoked liked a chimney, was about 75 pounds overweight. And his alcoholism marked me for life.

I was in junior high before I woke up and realized that not everyone's family had a patriarch who behaved like mine. I knew he had more than one personality, and I was never totally sure which one I would encounter when he came home from work, when he did come home.  In our house, you didn't talk about it. You didn't ask why dad wasn't home yet, or where he was, or if dinner was going to be late. Everything was fine.

So I never allowed myself to get too close or too involved with him.  And that suited both of us just fine. I never gave him any reason to get mad at me; he did anyway. I avoided him as much as possible. He never taught me to dance, or told me I was pretty (I wasn't, so I can't really blame him for that). I observed from afar, both to learn how not to behave, and what I could do to make things better or worse.

I think I was a junior in college before we had a real heart-to-heart conversation. It was on our annual Christmas Eve morning shopping trip where he managed to accomplish in two or three hours what took most people several weeks. Not fair.  It always ended with him taking me to lunch, which I think was his honest attempt to connect with me.  It was simply many years too late. He could be wonderful when he wanted, which wasn't nearly often enough. He was a masterful chef, and could cook just about any cuisine he attempted. Renowned for his barbecued chicken, anything Chinese (especially chicken wings), and shishkabob, I learned a lot of the subtleties of cooking from him.  I also learned how to grow roses, which was his avocation. He would be up with the sun on summer weekends, fussing and pruning and spraying his precious hybrid teas.

He hated the Catholic church, and resented with all his energy sending his kids to Catholic schools, particularly Catholic colleges. Some of that came from watching his own parents grovel to the church and deny their own family to contribute to creepy predatory pastors. That I can understand. But since most of my life in high school and college revolved around my singing in church, that left a fairly large gap.  He didn't want to send me to college at all; he said all I would do was get married, and I didn't need college for that.  But then he wanted me to attend UC Santa Barbara, and become an oceanographer. Don't ask me where THAT came from!  YOU go be an oceanographer! As it turned out, I went to college, and DID get married shortly afterward.  Unfortunately, Dad wasn't around for that.

Oddly enough, I did learn some important things from him, although I don't think I realized it while he was alive.  He put a supreme value on integrity.  I remember when I was in high school, a young salesman that Dad had hired and mentored was discovered to have swindled the company. Dad was furious, but more than that, he was hurt. When confronted, the guilty party had absolutely no remorse, which was the most devastating part of all.  I don't think I ever saw him so dejected, and I never forgot that. Because he never went farther than a high school diploma, Dad was always somewhat defensive about his qualifications.  He spoke like a true Chicago south-sider, substituting "don't" for "doesn't", and always wanted more for my brothers.

He's been gone for 34 years; I've lived far more of my life without him than I did with him.  As an adult, there is so much I wish we could talk about - so many questions I wish I could ask, and almost innumerable do-overs. Not gonna happen, at least not in this world.  Mostly, I'm sorry for what both of us missed. We will never get those days back again, never have a second chance to do it right.  My father had very interesting and eclectic taste in music - he loved the Mills Brothers, Willie Nelson, and Patsy Cline (OK, two outta three ain't bad). In the months before he died of lung cancer, we'd have breakfast listening to the radio. One morning, a song by Barbara Streisand came on, and he looked at me and told me how much he liked it.  So I listened a bit more closely:

"Whatever you are you're going to be, whatever you are is alright with me. You're gonna be what you want anyway, these are the words I heard my Father say...."

So, on the day we buried him, I sang that song at his funeral.

"Wherever you are I'm here by your side, My life is a rope that won't come untied. I'm gonna stand by you right or wrong, these are the words within my Father's song...."

Happy Father's Day, dad.....

"na na na na na na...You say it's your birthday....na na na na na na....It's My Birthday too, yeah...."

Today is my birthday.  It should be known that I consider it to be second in importance only to Christmas Day, and woe to those close to me who forget that.  It's the one day out of 365 where pure and simple self-centeredness is allowed and encouraged.  I love it.  I live for it.  But there is ONE problem with my particular birthday.  It didn't bother me much before age13, but ever since, I've had to watch out for it.

A mid-June birthday by its nature is at risk of being shared with graduations at all levels, and occasionally Father's Day.  My 8th grade graduation was on my birthday.  To be fair, it was also the day of my brother's college graduation, which he chose not to attend (mostly because my father needed him to chauffeur us to the airport for a trip to the midwest). At the time, it didn't strike me as a big deal because the trip was my graduation present. But now, as an adult and as a parent, I can't imagine missing my own college graduation, and I sure as hell wouldn't miss my kid's college graduation.  What was going on there?

When I was a senior in high school, my birthday was 3 days prior to graduation.  Lovely day, lots of fun. And then my father went on a business trip and missed my graduation.  He sent my older brother in his stead. Again, as a parent, I can't conceive of taking a pass on my kid's high school graduation, even if he did barely make it - maybe all the more so! But Dad had a trip he couldn't change, and so my brother was his representative.  I was not impressed.

My college graduation was the day before my birthday.  Dad missed that one, as well, since he died seven months prior. Both brothers were in attendance.  That was the most fun graduation ever - school was done, I was OUT, and preparing for my wedding in four weeks.  We spent my birthday attending the wedding of another good friend - oh yeah, that's the OTHER thing with which mid-June birthdays compete - LOTS of weddings!

As I get older and birthdays don't get the same hoop-de-doo as they did when I was a child, I find myself behaving more like a child, and stomping my foot and pouting if I am not appropriately fussed over.  Not very attractive, to be sure.  It's just that at this stage, I feel like I'm disappearing - my kids, my nieces & nephews, my friends all have so many milestones to celebrate, and I feel lost in the shuffle. Our boys each had a milestone graduation shared with my birthday. This birthday in particular is a bit of a weird one for me - I am the age today that my mother was when my father died and left her widowed with two kids at home.  That one stops me in my tracks.  And I wonder how many more birthdays I will have - with any luck, a whole bunch - and who will be with me to celebrate.  And I'm not quite as willing to share as I should be, and used to be.

Who says with age comes wisdom? In my case, it certainly doesn't come with grace....stay tuned....

The Wedding Song.....

June 1.....the month of graduations, Father's Day, my birthday, and......weddings.  Today marked a very sobering milestone, at least for me.  We received by email the contract and menu selections for our son's wedding.  Brian and Liz, God love their souls, have been trying their damnedest to get married since Liz was a senior at St. Norbert in 2008.  The original plan was Memorial Day Weekend, 2009. Then the economy tanked. Brian diligently sought employment opportunities in the midwest/Chicago area, where Liz lived. No luck. Liz found a good job after graduation, but they remained 1500 miles apart.  Then Brian became a casualty of downsizing.  While not great, at least it gave him the opportunity to move to Chicago, be with Liz, and look for work where they lived.

I'll spare you the gory details, but it went swiftly downhill from there.  Not only was the original wedding date abandoned, they found themselves living in a rental property that I could only describe as a slum. Tim said it brought to mind "Potterville" from It's a Wonderful Life - horrible rents charged for substandard property and living conditions. Despite windows and doors covered by blankets and plastic to prevent drafts, the temperature inside never went above 55 degrees.  And that was paying $300 a month for electricity. In a lot nearby, there were squatters living in a large tent with a bonfire.....not so bad, you say? This was February in Wisconsin....try it sometime.....

Spring forward to 2011, where Brian has a job - certainly not one he wants to hold forever, but it's something.They live in an adorable 98 year old Dutch Colonial house in a sweet neighborhood. After all these years of trying to do it on their own, they finally asked us if we were still willing to help fund them as they planned a wedding. Of course, we said yes.  The bride's family - which consists of her mother, also unemployed - is not in a position to take the traditional road. And we're back to Memorial Day Weekend, this time 2013.

There is nothing - and I do mean NOTHING - I like better than planning a wedding.  Ask my college roommate:  we planned mine for a year and a half!  I am a total sucker for weddings.  When I was a kid, my Catholic grammar school offered conversational French classes on Saturday mornings, and after class, I would hightail it over to our beautiful, brick Georgian-styled church to sneak in the back and watch the first of the day's weddings - the limo would pull up, disgorge the bride under the canopy, she'd walk gingerly up the steps to the big double doors, and I was hooked.  It was there, my mother told me, that I began my fixation on all things matrimonial - dress, flowers, tuxes, music, the works.  It was also before I realized someone had to pay for all that.

So today, I read with disbelief - and I consider myself fairly well-read on the subject - the cost of a simple, modest reception for 125 people. Somehow I thought we had dodged that bullet by producing only sons, but clearly God has other plans.  I love them, and I would do anything for them - obviously.  They're not asking for the moon; I've seen those kinds of weddings.  They're not interested, and we're not willing OR able. But hokey smokes, as Rocket J. Squirrel would say, that's a heck of a lot of money for 6 hours. And we haven't even begun to talk about flowers, photography, or other peripherals - like a dress.  Liz is not a bridezilla, and I don't want to give that impression.  Both of them have their feet firmly planted in reality. The reality is, it's a racket.  Which will no doubt provide fodder for a lot more posts like this.....stay tuned.....

"He is now to be among you at the calling of your hearts, rest assured this troubadour is acting on His part..."