Father

Today is father's day and I'm thinking of my dad, who passed on many years ago. How I remember him is his silent groundedness. He could converse with people and was quite adept at it, but I could tell even as a child, it wasn't his preference. We could sit in a car for hours on end, just he and I, without saying much of anything at all, because really, there was no need. We both knew we loved the other, and that was enough, just to spend time together.

There is one story I've heard that comes to mind this Father's Day. Another couple was staying with my parents, and it might have been around the time when my mother was pregnant with me. The woman got her period during their stay and someone needed to go to the store to get feminine napkins for her. My mother, in her advanced stage, wasn't going. The woman herself wasn't going. So it was left to the two men. The woman's husband pitched a fit about it, because this was the 1960's when "real men" didn't go to the grocery store to buy ladies products. It bothered him to no end to have to do this, and he made sure that they all knew how wrong this whole idea was.

There's a thing about my father's silence. I understand it because I do have that same thing myself at times. People mistake it for a lack of intelligence, passivity or disinterest. Really, what it is is that we're thinking...

My father said that he'd go with him, so he wouldn't be alone in this venture into shame and masculine downfall, and together they went into the store. The man was so nervous, he wouldn't take the box off the shelf, and didn't want to go to the counter with it. My father, being the ever-supportive friend, told him not to worry, he'd take care of everything.

They walked to the check out and my father handed the woman the box. She looked up at him in surprise as he handed her the money.

"Oh, they're not for me," he explained, motioning to his friend. "They're for him. Hemorrhoids."

Yes, my father took care of everything, all right.