How I Finally Came to Love My Father

I never kissed my dad, or at least I didn’t for many, many years. I even found it difficult to touch him. I was often irritated and frustrated by his slow way of speaking, his often judgmental tone and his generally negative attitude. It’d been that way between us for decades.

Even as a child, my insecure mother fed me mixed messages about my father. While her healthier instincts promoted our relationship, her neurotic, insistent jealousy distanced me from him by inappropriately “oversharing.”

I never imagined that it could change.

And yet, my first word as a bobbling baby had been his name, Leo, or rather, “Eo,” my version of it. My mother told me I would jump delightedly in my crib when he’d return from work.

What happened over the years is a complicated story. Somehow, my feelings for “Eo” became confused. I was very close to my mother, who treated me more as a friend than her child. Along with her jealous nature, she was also witty and vibrant. But her complaining about him led me away from him. Despite their turbulent relationship, they stayed together.

I chose my career thanks to his wise advice. My original plan to study marine biology would not have been ideal in Colorado. He recognized and appreciated my writing ability and recommended that I study journalism. It was, and is, the perfect career for me.

In 2008, I was the mother of three teens, approaching the “empty nest” stage of my life. My 94-year-old dad’s falls had become frequent and too frightening for my 81-year-old mom to handle. We all decided that he needed to move to a nursing home.

His mild dementia was stable and never worsened, so he never needed memory care. During my visits, Dad recognized me and loved to play his harmonica, always on hand in his shirt pocket. The others in the home would smile at him, glad for any type of entertainment, even when it was a simple ditty like “Old MacDonald” or “Three Blind Mice.”

At first, I visited my dad frequently, out of guilt and a compulsive need to “do the right thing.” And then, slowly, to my surprise, I found myself enjoying my time with him. Dad was always so pleased to see me. He told me stories about his time in the Army, about his childhood and his parents, whom I never knew. He could be quite charming and humorous.

Sometimes, he talked about the end of his life growing near. Often, he obsessed about the inventive new schemes he had for us to “hit the big time” with money. He fantasized about his roommate having “lady friends” visiting secretly at night, or he imagined that someone had replaced his wheelchair with a smaller one. He fretted over the inequities and peculiarities of the English language, wondering why some words are spelled similarly but sound different, for example, “eight” and “height.”