My father died just short of my tenth birthday, in another century, in another culture and milieu. He’s a black and white memory, with the cartoon quality of newsreel footage. What I know about him is this: he was the youngest of five brothers; his mother (for whom I was named) had tuberculosis when she became pregnant with her fifth son, and never had the strength to give him any nurturing. Perhaps because of that, he hated women. And sometimes I think he named me after her, so he could get even with her for having refused to give him love. He picked on me endlessly. Nothing I could do ever pleased him. He called me awful names, he claimed I was ugly, he hit me, he told me I smelled, he screamed at me, anything damaging one could do to a child, short of actual murder he did, and did again without the slightest gesture of self-control, eventual remorse or even, I’m guessing pleasure. Pleasure being different than gratification. Surely I must have gratified the burning ID of this doomed yid. (I am here paraphrasing Philip Roth).
Photo: Joel Goodman
Unlike my mother, who slowly died over a period of twenty years, my father took only a forty-eight hour time period to kick the bucket. He and my mother went to a Luau themed party at some private club in Shreveport, Louisiana where he stuffed himself on roast suckling pig, came home after he wasn’t feeling well, and then ended up in the hospital that night and that was more or less it.
Two memories of that fatal weekend remain with me.
My sister brother and I were taken to the movies by family friends who knew the scoop: that Daddy was near death and in a coma and Mama was by his side. His four older brothers had flown to the deathbed in the early morning hours, and we, the inchoate half-orphans, were the only ones kept in
the dark.
I remember walking into the living room of our empty house and being told to go to their bedroom. There, Mr. S., Daddy’s best friend, awaited us. One look at his face was all any of us needed. We all burst into collective wailing even before he announced, “He’s gone.”
Suddenly, the house was full of people. There were platters of food; there were other people’s housekeepers with white aprons serving it. There were flowers, there was whiskey. My mother, pale and cowardly arrived amid this clatter. “I’m sorry, darling!” she said to me. “Your childhood is over.”
The room goes black.
My mind goes black.
My hatred is frozen in time and fossilized like some creature caught in amber, it never makes a movement.
It is Stonehenge. It is Mount Rushmore. It is Congo.
Until the day before yesterday, when out of the blue, I suddenly forgave him.
And why is this? I have no idea. But my body tells me so. And my spirit has sighed a huge one of relief.
He was mentally ill. He didn’t know what he was doing. He was just in his idiotic way taking whatever he could that he was interested in at the moment. Other than playing gin, and eating, perhaps I was his other gratification.
I’ve tried since the grand release of ancient hostilities to grab a hold of one event, one nice thing to hang my sun hat on so to speak. It’s awfully hot outside this July fourth weekend. I don’t go anywhere without my sun hat.
There was the stuffed dog he won me at the Louisiana State Fair. That was a big one. Even though I knew the dog was about him, he didn’t give it to big sis or big bro. I actually came home with the loot for the first and only time.
And how I loved that dog!
Then, just last night, I remember him sitting on my bed. Just sitting. He’s not gonna hit me, or hurt me, or yell at me, or do what they do in Congo to so many little girls.
One night shortly before he died, he taught me to pray.
Now if Jesus was involved in this story, this would be one of certain redemption. But we were small town Jews in America. We feared Jesus and all followers of the cross. They burned black people, and they burned Jews when they ran out of black people. Hadn’t they done that to all the Jews in
Europe?
My father taught me my shema. For anyone who isn’t Jewish, shema is the mother lode. It is the Lord’s Prayer and more. Pious Jews recite it every morning when they awaken. Anyway, he taught me my shema. In English and then in Hebrew. Then as now, I’m a quick memorizer. And that night, I said it back to him in nothing flat. He didn’t praise me. Never once did I receive my father’s love or praise, but he did nod his head with some satisfaction.
Then, he told me, I was to say, following the shema, “God Bless Grandpa Marcus’ soul and Grandma Marcus’ soul.” This followed by an amen.
Sometimes he would come to the dark room and stand by the foot of the bed and he’d have me go through the litany. Shema, God Bless. Amen.
The night he died, and here finally is my pure untainted recollection of that time: one that does not involve terror, or make me angry, or give me a neck ache, migraine, a panic attack or a week long case of the hives.
I knew I must pray for him on the night he died but I didn’t know where to put him in the hierarchy. Should he go before the God Bless Grandma Marcus’ soul and Grandpa Marcus’ soul? It did not seem logical because I was going in the order of their deaths.
But I put him first in line. His was truly the first death, the death that mattered, the death that night gave birth to my new life. By the time I was ten, two weeks later, everything was infinitely better.
God bless Daddy’s soul, Grandma Marcus’ soul and Grandpa Marcus’ soul. I liked the cadence of the blessing. I was aware that it was a new cadence, one that was not yet comfortable in my brain, that I noticed it rather than just recited it.
Daddy was dead. And I blessed his soul for years. Last night I did it again.
Shema, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa, Amen.
My gratitude is endless.
by 
