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"I had always struggled with the belief that my father did not genuinely love me. I have certainly not been alone in this thought. In discussions with friends and acquaintances it has become evident that the tenet of the lack of parental love is a generational epidemic (Morrow). It has taken me over forty years to finally understand that a child's definition of their parent's behavior towards them does not indicate the depth and the completeness of their love."
It was disconcerting to see what wonderful relationships the kids in my neighborhood appeared to have with their dads when I was growing up. They talked, played catch, and went places together. My dad, Max, was different from the other fathers. People who knew him always remarked what a caring family man he was, but to me he was like a shadow, ethereal and almost cadaverously quiet. While always there, he tended to float around the edges of my life. He was like a strong, unforgettable melody, faintly heard in the background.
What prevents the meaningful connection between fathers and their sons? In my later teens it was never discussed among my friends of common experience, but somehow our shared ache was apparent. It was not until I became an adult that mine became the quest to heal the emptiness. What cause emasculated my dad's ability to be an emotionally present and active father?
We never threw a ball together. I don't recall that he ever bought one for me. Perhaps what was missed then was not as important as it later became because it was years before I was given an old, used glove by one of my father's friends. My dad's lecture on the birds and bees lasted an uncomfortable and awkward minute and a half. We never sat together on the couch sipping hot chocolate while watching old westerns during a winter storm. I alone constructed my race-losing pine wood derby car before quitting the Scouts. My neighbors perceived my lack and made effort to fill it. One taught me how to ride my shiny, new candy apple red bike that I received as a birthday gift. Another would hand me an old rake and together we would talk and gather the colorful, fallen autumn leaves.
As with others of my same ilk, the very few times of closeness with my father were rare treats, and long cherished. Max always loved war movies. In 1965, a new war epic, The Battle of the Bulge, hit the movie theaters on a limited basis and he decided to take me to see it for my ninth birthday. I was elated to have a father-son night. The closest showing was in Brooklyn and we had to drive all the way from Staten Island. The Verrazano Bridge had just opened so excitement and apprehension coursed through my body simultaneously as we flew over the longest bridge in the world! When we finally arrived at the big, old-fashioned movie house, it was quite ornate and somewhat scary. The theater went dark as the movie prepared to play, but I felt the warm safety of sitting next to my daddy. Sadly, The next day he disappeared to the fringe once again but the reminiscence still tarries in the recesses of my memory.
I never heard the lyrics to the quiet melody of my father's life, but it was a radiant love song waiting decades to be heard. Looking back I now understand the sweetly sung lyrics in the little things he did. The wood-crate scooters he made with old gunmetal roller skates were the envy of the neighborhood! Sometimes he let me use his tools. One precious moment his action trumpeted a crescendo of his love. Driving home from my uncle's in Brooklyn he was forced to slam on the brakes as a car stopped suddenly and unexpectedly in the middle of an intersection. Instinctively his hand flew out to stop me from slamming into the dashboard. By his actions once again, another seed of my daddy's love for me was planted in my heart for harvesting in later years when it would be understood.
I was probably fifteen when I first heard Harry Chapin sing, "The cats in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boyblue and the man in the moon; when you coming home dad, I don't know when, but we'll get together then, you know we'll have a good time then." The lyrics of this hit song seemed to proudly proclaim the relationship between a father and his son. I purchased it as a present for my dad's birthday after I heard it. When my older sister Arlene discovered my gift, she created such a fuss about it that I smashed the record to pieces before presenting it. She saw the gift as a great insult to my father. I saw it as a non-critical description of a normal relationship between a distant dad and a loving son earnestly awaiting his adored father to come home.
At eighteen I learned to play pool and began frequenting a pool parlor with my friends. This led to several occasions of my father and I shooting pool together. He always won. This was probably the last real activity my dad and I shared before I migrated to California when I was twenty.
As I grew into a man and had children of my own, I began to see in my behavior a direct reflection of my dad. "I'm gonna be like you dad, you know I'm gonna be like you," sang Harry Chapin. I wanted to be a good dad, but didn't know how. I worked hard at it, but the tools I inherited were few. Between the birth of my second and third sons self-awareness kicked in and I began to understand what was required to be emotionally present. As unlikely as it seems, this increased the feeling of the loss of something I never had, an intimate connection with my father.
When my mom died I realized just how little I knew about my parents. Now, more than ever, before it was too late, I wanted to get to know my father on a deeper level. I wanted to find out what made him who he was. There was a new drive to understand what caused him to be such a distant father to me and yet so highly thought of as warm loving man by his friends. I made great effort to get to know this man and to try to grow close to him. My wife and I visited with him and asked countless questions about his life. I began to know and understand him a little. There were many surprises.
Max loved music and was several years into violin lessons when he turned nine years old in 1929. His passion for classical music even at that young age must have given him a drive of singular focus. Tragically, during the great depression his father died, leaving young Max and his brother Milton with a mother unable to support them. Sadly, Max and his brother Milton were placed in separate dormitories of an orphanage in Yonkers, New York, several hours away from his home in Brooklyn.
His violin instructor was so confident of Max's talent that he traveled the four-hour round trip to continue teaching him weekly violin lessons at no charge. Instead of the joy that should have accompanied those visits, Max recoiled at the reminder of the painful experiences of losing his father and being abandoned by his mother. He refused further lessons.
According to scant family memories, and the information we gleaned from Max himself, it was believed that he could have become a violin virtuoso had he not denied himself the joy of music. The distance he placed between himself anand the joy of music invaded his relationships as well. The answers were coming into tune as I discovered that to my father it was safer to stay on the edge and not approach too closely that which he loved most.
Shortly after I began the search into my dad's life, he died of congestive heart failure at the age of seventy-eight. Even though his death was anticipated, he died all too soon for me to finish developing the harmony between us. "The leader of the band is tired, and his eyes are growing old, but his blood runs through my instrument and his song is in my soul" (Dan Fogelberg).
While going through his effects, I came upon a video of old black and white photos from the orphanage. Some were faded, others poignant, and still others portrayed a sense of a "shared ache." Few had the grand smiles of youth. His best friend Ed had produced and mailed it along with a letter to my parents dated October 1995, just a few short years before they both died. This correspondence added another measure of the song. Ed wrote, "the Alumni..were often reluctant to discuss those years with our friends or our families. It was painful, it hurt too much to talk about our separation from our fathers or mothers." Ed continued; "..We carried those memories and those images of scared or puzzled kids. {But only some of us} began to openly discuss our feelings of rejection. Stirring up old feelings of inadequacy and other anxieties." How I longed for my father to have shared that memories of that song with me.
In my anguish, I got into the habit of typing our family name in an Internet search engine looking for ancestral information. And so I came upon the new web site of the orphanage where my dad had been raised. Within its framework were memorials of deceased alumni. Pictures of my Uncle Milty and my dad with their biographical information were displayed on my monitor.
After wiping the tears away, I emailed the Author of the HNOH Welcome-Jewish Orphanages in the United States and thanked her deeply for honoring Max and Milty in this way. A quick response came thanking me and offering me information on a book written by one of the alumni who knew my dad. It was there, as I rifled through the pages of Deja Views of an Aging Orphan, by Sam Arcus, that the rhythm of my father's life began to flow. Finally I began to appreciate the song that was my father's life.
Orphanages in those days were strict, very much like a Marine boot camp but the orphans lacked hope of graduating, and were devoid of protection from overbearing adults. There were but few joys: the hopes of a visit from a relative, and their friendship and common understanding of fellow orphans. Punishment was quick, harsh and cruel. In his book, Sam Arcus relays a horrific story told by Chick Baker; "Many of the boys will never forget the Colonel, his name was Hans Christian Anderson. It is inconceivable that this sadistic, heartless individual could be the grandson of the great and gentle children's storyteller." Chick expounds on how The Colonel took great delight in intimidating the children, and "how he loved to smack his palm over your ear, so hard that many of the boys still have ringing in their ears". He would march them into exhaustion for the slightest infraction, sometimes through dinner. Mr. Baker finishes his story with how this "six foot, five inch, giant of a man" slapped him full force twice because he "vas out uf shtep".
Horrified, I continued to read through the abuse and mistreatment my father and his fellow orphans were subjected to. My heart broke over the pain he endured during his years at the orphanage. The composition of his life began to take further shape.
As my understanding dawned, it filled my emptiness with the knowledge that my Dad gave me the very best he had to give. For a short while I felt a profound sadness for a man whose great potential was shaped by the tragic events in his life in such a way that his symphony remained unwritten.
Yes, my dad was a strong melody, frequently melancholy, rarely joyful, but unforgettable. His was the type of musical pattern that you frequently find yourself humming throughout the years. This postlude sings of the depth of a father's love for his son and the understanding finally reached by the child seeking it. For most of us the love song is buried, however deeply, in the treasure chest of our memories.
©2001 Jeff Needleman
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