Father's Day
The Angry Death of a Good Man
Where to start? In short, my father has been dead now for 17 years. I am 50 and can't at this point in my growth of self-awareness really remember much about him accept anger. These are things I recognize now that triggered his idealism to be angry.
It was the 60's; he was an old school crew cut navy man with the obligation chip on his shoulder. He had done his job, or at least the egoic implanted concept of where the happy trail ended. And would end if he would follow the status quo like footsteps, wife, kids, job, and community, retire, bliss. Yep, there you go, 1-2-3, no sweat, nicely laid out before you. The security of how it all turns out, except it cant turn out, it never turns out, it can only shift and sway under the weight of everyday life. To a vet of foreign war with the tattoo of tradition and what's right and wrong carved into his temporal lobe, that shit just don't fly. That being freedom of personal choice.
I went to visit my Dad on Father Day in Fort Snelling, a surrealistic farm of headstones of men and women who thought and tried and to some extent maybe succeeded in the singular ideas of a life fulfilled. But, I wonder how many were disappointed? How many died unfulfilled? How much pain and anguish rested with these beyond deserving people.
The killing floor of ego, a successful crop of true believers angrily defending their idea of what they were subconsciously led to believe was the path to a purpose. A reward of and for blood, pain, sacrifice and honor. Honestly looking at my father was, at this point in my life, the hardest, easy thing I've done so far.
My father was older when I came along; he was in his 40's. He was, at this point in his life, probably still embedded in the idealism and righteousness of action, 3 boys, a wife, a good job, a house, the lions club, and active in the community long before it became fashionable. Going through the motions of being happy and well adjusted, but as I grew up in the 60's the world of young adults woke up for not much more than a sneeze in time, but they did wake up. By the end of the 60's for a navy man with a 18 year old son who could think for himself and embraced the concept of individuality and Jimi Hendrix at top volume and a 9 year old (me) watching it all unfold and having a perspective of the young brain not exposed to alternative of war and pain of "shut up and do your job"" to the degree my father had been. I opted to absorb the "Big Brother" concept, yet another slash at the father plan, that like so many other fathers, was unraveling at the speed of light.
Reaction! Fight or Flight? Now, fight to flight turned anger and back then when your 50 years old and your plan dissolves it's got to be a scary mother fucker. No one to ask: What happened? Either roll with it or fight and as I said that response is in the double helix of your ass's make up. And when all that you've been taught is fighting, you're pretty much doomed to be able to see past it as a wrong concept. So as I reviewed this in my head looking out at a sea of souls, I came to a humbling conclusion, there is no thing or act that is correct, just the perception of it.
Coming to a balance of recognition of truths that are fact: You breath, You exist, You croak, then the rest in between is a game we call Toxic Ego.
This malady "Toxic Ego" consumes the brightest of generations and consumed a good and deserving man, a father; my father, to what end?
You can't fix the past, you can't control the future, you can only breathe and adapt. That's a win!
As for my dad, "I love you Dad". I wish I had this perspective before you died, but hey, we are all trying. As for the anger, get rid of it before it gets rid of you.
There is not one great moment in life; life is your great moment. That piece of Zen comes from a privilege brought to you by the universe, yet a whole generation then and a whole generation now blow by it like a summer breeze. Not much thinking one-way or the other about it. To my Dad, well, you can only say thank you and sorry that you struggled so much to do the right thing and did not give yourself the chance to be really totally happy or even enjoy the moment of your life.
What you may not know is that you gave me the most amazing of opportunities to learn all the things you never realized. You were teaching me what not to do by living someone else's idea of you.
So what to make of a Father's Day like this? Make what you will of it. I choose to remember a man that gave it his best and tried to live a dream. I am grown up enough now to really appreciate this guy's attempt at the big show. At the end of the day folks, it's just that, the end of the day.
Peace, Ron Morris