Lou

Lou was my father.  He wasn’t a huggy father, not what you’d call a loving or lovable man.  The business world was his milieu; in that world, he was a good schmoozer and thus a good salesman.  He was a man of little education, having dropped out of school in grade 10.   Keeping abreast of world happenings via newspapers and television gave him the ability to converse intelligently about current events.  He had many acquaintances and quite a few friends who respected his work ethic and his outside-of-the-family-home sense of humour.  Unfortunately, we didn’t often get to see that side of Lou…most often we saw the tired, impatient, quick-to-anger side.  Long hours and hard work left him with little patience for his two youngest children…his daughters.  We were not, as is sometimes the case in families, daddy’s little princesses.  Surprisingly, he would sometimes refer to me as his princess and my sister as his baby, but in truth we were it seemed, more of an annoyance, small people who made too much noise and were too silly.
 

There were the days when he tried to be a good father.   When I was eight or nine, my sister and I and our father had a game we played from time to time, until he got fed up with it.  When we heard him pull up in the driveway, we would run and hide (always in the same place) behind the pillows in the cupboard.  He would pretend to search for us and ultimately ‘find’ us.  I remember being so excited that he was playing with us.  Some weekends would find us at Port Stanley.  My father loved the water and again, I was thrilled when he’d spend time with me.  He’d allow me to stand on his shoulders and dive into the water and encourage me to swim.  It happened very rarely, but it was wonderful to experience the playful father.  My love of swimming comes from those experiences.
 

Lou loved to sing and when we travelled to Detroit, our family indulged in two or three part harmony.  How I loved those times!  Of course, those were also the days when we were unaware of the dangers of smoking. Lou was a two-packet a day man and smoked in the car.  I was prone to motion sickness and when tobacco was added to the mix, the motion sickness often forced a very angry father to pull over to the side of the road, so his annoying daughter could vomit.

  

I never knew which father I would get when I was young.  I always hoped for the indulgent one, but most often the critical, short-tempered one showed up.  I know from family anecdotes that I was not the easiest child to endure….very whiney (especially after my sister was born) and too needy for someone who tended towards impatience. 

As I write this, I find there is so much to say.  I could talk about the many weekends and summer days when we worked with my father at ‘the store’.  Our drives back and forth to Woodstock heralded a different dynamic in our relationship… his many attempts to ‘educate’ us politically, our conversations about life, his unfavourable attitude about the ‘hippy-generation’, his love of radio talk-shows’ and the news.  We hated those especially, preferring the latest 70’s music.  It was always a battle of the radio dial.  He’d put up with a song or two and then switch back to his favourite channel.  All of this is especially interesting to me now because of my love for the CBC. 

Many years later when my family had all but given up on me ever having a child, along came my son.  When I was in hospital, my father sent me the most beautiful bouquet I’d ever seen.  I was absolutely shocked that he did.  This is one of several memories of him that I cherish.
 

When my son was two years old, I decided, with the help of a psychiatrist, that it was time to tell my father that I loved him.  I called his number in Florida and both my parents picked up.

“Hi, Lou. I just called to tell you I love you,” I blurted it out quickly.

There was no response….a very uncomfortable seven or eight seconds dragged by.

“We love you, too,” said my mother.

“Did you hear me, Lou?  I said I love you.”

Two beats…”Well, Arlene, I don’t know how I feel about you.”

My heart.  I struggled to hold back the tears and said, “Okay, well I’ll talk to you next week.”

When I hung up, the tears came.

Several weeks later my parents returned to Canada.  My father came for a visit and did something he had never done before.  He rested his arm on the back of the sofa where I was sitting and stroked my shoulder with his hand.  He never did tell me he loved me, but he tried to bridge the gap many times by making some kind of physical contact….a hug, a pat, his arm around me on the rare occasion.  This was huge for him…and for me.  He really tried and I so appreciated it.  It made me so happy.

He once confided in me.  “I watch you and J.P. and your sister and George and see how good you are with your children and I wish I’d been a better father to you.” 

He also loved to tell people that I taught at Fanshawe.  It was because of my father (who forced me to become a teacher) that I had the most wonderful job for thirty-two years.  He was proud of that fact and that I could speak several languages (albeit badly….he never knew how badly).

Forward to 1991.  My father suffered a major heart attack in Florida and was medevacked back to Canada.  We were all at the hospital to say our goodbyes.  They were going to take him off life-support..he was on a respirator.  He was conscious and knew it was his time.  Shelley and I went in together.  He couldn’t speak, but he obviously wanted to say something.  I asked the nurse for a pencil so he could write, but she told us it would be too stressful for him.  In retrospect, I so wish I’d been assertive enough to demand a pencil, but I was sickeningly passive in those days.  He beckoned to me with his index finger…”Come here.”  I went to him, but he, of course, couldn’t speak to me.  What did he want to tell me?  I’m almost sure he wanted to tell me to take care of my sister, so I told him I would.  But, maybe, just maybe he wanted to tell me he loved me?