My Father--William Parker

If I remember the story right he was from Georgia and his family were wealthy tobacco farmers, originally from England. My paternal grandmother's name was Mary (as is my maternal grandmother's and as is my middle name) and I met her once. I also met my father once, and my aunt Margaret, my father's sister, once too. So much for family closeness.

My father's name was William and he had no middle name. My mother had told me a story, which my father later confirmed, about how he stabbed a preacher in the hand with a fork when he was a little boy. The preacher, who was a guest for Sunday dinner, was trying to force my father to eat a tomato. My father didn't like tomatoes.

He was an alcoholic and a chain smoker. The story goes that a doctor once told him that he had cirrhosis of the liver and only 3 months to live. He never touched another drink and then went on to get married, have two more children and live another 15 years. He didn't stop smoking though and died of a heart attack when I was 24 years old. I don't know how old he was when he died but it was fairly young as my mother was 56 and I believe they were close in age.

I lived in a little farmhouse in Oregon at the time, with no phone, my husband, and 3 young children. I opened the mailbox to retrieve my mail and I saw it sitting in there. Whatever they called those special letters back then in 1978, express post, or something. One lone, white, envelope with red and blue highlights. The letter was from my brother who lived in California and it scared the heck out of me. I though maybe my mother had died.



I was in the midst of chanting japa, (a spiritual mantra repeated over and over again while fingering rounds on a string of beads) when I pulled the letter out of the mail box. I kept chanting while walking the long driveway back to my house. I sat down in my rocking chair and continued chanting, letter in hand, finishing my round on the beads. Slowly I opened the letter and read my brother's words, "Father has left his body." I cried out, sobbing and sobbing, tears streaming down my face. I was so relieved. My mother was alive.

My mother had told me a little about my father as I was growing up. She said she had married him simply because he asked her to and that she felt sorry for him. On their first date they stopped by a church and my father lit candles. My mother thought it was very romantic. They had my brother and then 4 years later I came along.

Most of the stories about my father did not flatter him but I always pictured him a gregarious and confidant man. There was one story about how her wedding ring was repossessed along with all the new furniture in their house. Another about her hiding, crouched down in the closet holding my 4 year old brother while he hit her. She was pregnant with me at the time. She told me that if I ever found him he would either be doing great things or would be face down in a gutter somewhere.

She left him while she was still pregnant with me and was living in San Francisco. I was born in Saint Mary's Hospital and then when I was a few months old she moved back home into her parent's farmhouse in the little town where she graduated high school.

I remember talking to my father on the phone at least once, maybe more, when I was very little. I remember him sending presents once, maybe more. I was sure that the baby doll I grew up with was a gift from him but recently my mother told me that she was the one who bought that doll for me. I'm not sure I believe her and prefer to think it's her confusion.

I devised a plan while growing up, that I would one day hire a private investigator who would find my father for me. He would be doing great things and would not be face down in a gutter. My mother had a picture of him in her album, and another of my eldest older brother. He was my father's child from his first marriage, and he had the same name as my father. It was this brother who actually found our father, as I had always planned to do. That's when he discovered he had another brother and sister out in California where he had also grown up. He found us by phone and told us about our dad.

A brutha from anotha mutha.

I was 17 years old, with a child of my own when I met my dad. He lived in Manhattan, New York, with his wife, two young sons, and an African American nanny. He wasn't in a gutter but I don't think he was necessarily doing great things either. Well, I don't really know that, maybe he was. He did have an impressive office in a big sky rise and I remember bragging that my father lived in the same elegant apartment building off 5th Ave. that the Family Affair family lived in (remember Buffy, Jody, Cissy, Mr. French, and uncle Bill, a high powered engineer and swinging bachelor?). The brother that I grew up with got to know him a lot better than I did so I should ask him what our dad was actually up to. I do know that our father made a very big impression on my brother and influenced a big personal change in his life in a very positive direction.

He flew me and my 6 month old son back to New York from California for a week long visit. I was soon to turn 18 years old. He seemed to be making decent money doing something that had to do with franchising for national sports. The story I've held on to is that he was making $20,000. a month (that may be true or I maybe I made it up to impress people) but spent it all as quickly as it came in, maintaining his newest family, gambling at the greyhound dog races, and sending my two younger brothers to private schools.

My father told me that he wanted to be a part of our lives when we were growing up and that he tried to get a hold of us after my mother married. He said he called around to all of the local churches until he found the one we attended. The minister told him to leave us alone, that we were a happy family and that Wayne, (our step-father) was like a father to us. Well, he was a deacon of the church and he did make good impressions on people. It was all a facade of course. My step-father did not love my brother and me. I don't really buy that story as the real reason he wasn't involved in our lives but I'm sure there was a part of him that did desire to be connected with his children.

Little bro, is that you?

The eldest of my father's two young sons, my younger brothers, had a foot fetish. He was an odd little guy who watched the weather channel for pleasure. He fell in love with my feet and wanted to constantly look at them and stroke them. He would throw fits whenever I tried to leave their apartment while wearing revealing shoes. They had to lock him in his room at bedtime because he had the tendency to get up in the middle of the night and do crazy things while everyone slept. He actually did get out of his room one night when I was there and tried to make pancakes in the kitchen. He had the stove turned on high and then emptied dry pancake mix into the pan on the burner.

I eventually met my eldest brother also. A few years after he had found our father, he came to our hometown to meet my brother and me. Then once again in 2005, I looked him up while visiting my husband's family on a trip back east. We met for lunch. I met his wife. He met my husband. We took pictures together and our resemblance to one another is amazing. I emailed him a bunch of pictures 6 months later at Christmas time and never heard back from him. Strike two for family closeness. I've never seen my two younger brothers again. It's been 35 years now. Strike three.

I'm glad to have met my father, even if only once. I spent my whole childhood thinking about him and wanting him. I always believed there was something terribly wrong with me because he had left. I was sure it was my fault. How else could a father abandon his little daughter, not stick around to love and protect her and teach her important things unless there was a very good reason? I believed that I was defective, that there was something horribly, awfully wrong with me.

One thing I'm sorry about is that I never called him dad. When I was visiting, he noticed that. He was kind and mentioned it, telling me that I could call him anything I was comfortable with--Dad, Bill, whatever I wanted to call him was fine with him. But I never did. I never could bring myself to personally address him with a name or title of any sort. I would just start talking and it always felt awkward. And that makes me sad.

I never really knew him but he was my father and he impacted my life in a big way. For instance...that pathological attraction I have for unavailable men? He abandoned me but first he gave me life. I'm sure he did the best he could. Gave the best he had to give. I'm glad I met him once. I'm glad I'm here. I wish I could see him again.

I love you, dad.