I am now the age my father was when he retired. He was offered a golden handshake in one of those corporate takeover scenarios. It took him a year to settle his things and then he walked away from his old life and disappeared for a while. Many years later, he told me about those months. Mostly reading, walking, cycling, museums, listening to music, photography, lots of sleep, he said (he forgot to mention the women). My parents never met again. Lawyers did the talking. Phone numbers were changed several times. The biggest mistake of my life, he often tells me, marrying that woman. I used to shout at him then. Don't speak like that, I am your child and so on. But he never listened to me anyway.
The last time I met my brother, his face went white for a second. You look a lot like her with this haircut. For a moment I thought . . .
I turned to my father and asked, do I look like her? How much do I look like her? Tell me!
I have no memory, he replied. That woman is dead and gone.
My parents on their wedding day. 1954. Not quite nine years after the end of WWII. Two young scientists with big ideas and bigger plans. Soon life caught up with them.
The older I get, the more I realize that some people simply never should have been parents. Not a judgement- just a fact.
ReplyDeleteThose dark inner-dynamics of families, the kind of true stories that make the most compelling heartbreaking literature. Torn from the diaries of children's memories.
ReplyDeletePhotographs are so revealing of undercurrents when seen years later. Had you not identified the day as their wedding day, it could well have been the day when your father said, "That woman is dead and gone." There is already appears to be a deep sense of disconnect between those two young scientists with their plans for a future together. Your father, although young, looks substantially older than your mother. She looks quite fragile and introverted. They both look vulnerable in their own way. But what do I know? I do know that you and R found each other and raised Sunday's child together and that you didn't follow in your parents' footsteps. Have you ever seen the film, "Smoke Signals," by Sherman Alexie? There is a poem at the end. This photo makes me think of that film and that poem.
ReplyDeleteThe eyelines in the photo make me think ...
ReplyDeleteThey look smart. It was weird growing up with parents hating one another. I'm glad i got to know them both for who they are and not for the caricatures they painted of each other. This year i'm as old as my mom when she had me. I can't imagine.
ReplyDeleteBeing a child of a similarly acrimonious divorce -- at least from my mother's point of view -- I can identify!
ReplyDeleteThat's a wild post -- like a punch in the gut. I am reminded ofSharon Olds' poem titled "I Go Back to May 1937." Have you read it?http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/176442
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