Tapestries - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

Threads:

My father always told me
do what you feel is best,
allow conscience to guide you -
remember you are blessed.
Don't ever follow blindly,
put wisdom to the test;
you are not any better
or worse than all the rest.
Indelibly imprinted
are views that he opined -
blunt and untempered statements
like ore that's unrefined.
They took some time to process
in hearts he left behind -
now they are embedded deep
and often come to mind.
So much my father told me
in youth I criticized.
Many of his attitudes
I thought that I despised.
As I gain experience
quite often I'm surprised;
reviewing his opinions,
my own are oft' revised.
His simple earthy wisdom
and childlike joie de vivre
are traits in me inherent -
they shape what I believe,
the way I give to others,
and too, how I receive.
These threads interwoven in
the tapestry I'll leave.

By Sharon Flood Kasenberg. September 2, 2007

My father was a character - a complicated man, irascible, short-tempered and dogmatic, but also quick to laughter and capable of great generosity. He was a very intelligent man who was limited by his circumstances. He was a product of his era and his upbringing.

Raised on an isolated island in Lake Huron, he was a boy who suffered an identity complex. Should he be the rough and ready son his father, a quintessential "man's man" wanted, or the scholar that his mother, a former school teacher, desired him to be? He tried to be both, but had no stomach for hunting, and I think that he often felt that he failed to meet his father's expectations. His mother, on the other hand, often showed his children, with considerable pride, the trophy that he won in a spelling bee.

"It was actually a tie", she'd tell us with a smile, "but the judges decided that whoever could darn socks better would get the cup."

And thus my father won - against a girl! I'm betting my grandfather had mixed feelings about that victory.

He grew up fast - finished high school classes in a one room schoolhouse by the time he was sixteen, and went to work helping his father clear lumber "in the bush" and "working the boats" in the north channel. He enlisted in WWII at the age of nineteen, and upon returning home at the age of twenty-three he enrolled in University under the GI bill. But his educational aspirations were cut short by his inability to stay awake during classes.

It took the doctors at Sunnybrook Hospital a while to diagnose narcolepsy, and they never did manage to find effective treatment for him. He moved back to Sault Ste. Marie and began working at Algoma Steel, aka "that stinkin' plant", the same place his father died in a smelting accident. I don't think he ever got over his feelings of defeat at having to put aside dreams of being an architect, engineer or teacher to work on the loading dock of a steel mill.

Shift work was doubly hard on a man who had no control over his sleep patterns. He suffered from insomnia when he needed to sleep, and fought to stay awake and alert on the job. Ignorant coworkers bullied him by playing very unfunny practical jokes on "sleepyhead Bill". He felt tormented.

He was often an angry man.

His life was filled with complicated relationships. I think he felt unappreciated by his wife and children. We resented having to tiptoe around him when he was trying to sleep, or grumpy from lack of sleep. He was strict as a parent, and had very high expectations of his children - especially when it came to academic performance.

And yet, he was gregarious and affectionate. When he wasn't at work he grabbed life with both hands. His evenings were filled with friends, and square dancing and card games. As a teenager I felt ripped off that my parents had a busier social life than I did. Occasionally my brother Robert and I would tease them on the way out the door, saying,

"Try not to come in too late, okay? And if you bring friends home, can you keep it down? We need our sleep!"

My father loved to talk - to just about anyone. I remember walking in the neighbourhood with him as a child, and how he'd greet everyone we passed. I'd think to myself, "Dad knows everyone!" Later I learned that he didn't - but that didn't stop him from starting up conversations with them anyway.

He was an extrovert, and he always wanted his more introverted, bookish children to be more like him. But most of us preferred English to Mathematics and none of us ever took up card playing or square dancing.

When my father died in 1997 we were all shocked that a man so strong and forceful had succumbed to death so soon. He was only in his early seventies, and had hailed from a line of notoriously long-lived folk. We all thought he'd be around decades longer, and perhaps mellow into a more lovable curmudgeon. At his funeral many of us were plagued by varying degrees of guilt - our last conversations with him having been riddled with disagreements.  No great surprise really, as all six of his children had spent most of our lives arguing with him. Still, we'd all grudgingly admired him and all secretly longed for his approval - just as he'd longed for praise from his father.

My father shaped my life better than his father shaped his. He taught me to be smart and tough - to stand up for myself, and to push myself out of my introverted comfort zone. I learned how to talk to strangers, speak in front of groups and "work a room" at social functions.

Thanks to hours of listening to my father's tales, I can tell a good story. I have his temper, but I also have his joie de vivre - that inner imp that was often manifested in him by a twinkling eye or an impromptu out of tune ditty. (Luckily I can carry a tune). I'm a terrible dancer, but I dance anyway. To me, he passed on his sweet tooth, his love of real estate and house plans, and a penchant for enjoying sunsets and being near large bodies of water.  Now I sometimes I get chatty with strangers myself, and I value friendship deeply.

My father was complicated, and so was my relationship with him. That's okay - nobody ever said love had to be easy, or that you had to see eye to eye with somebody in order to love them. On my wedding day my father took Todd aside and said,

"Good luck with this one. I love her, but I just don't get her at all!"

I laughed when my new husband recounted the comment. It was so hilariously ironic that we were united in a complete inability to relate to each other. It was comforting to know that all the times we'd seen things from completely different angles he wasn't just being stubborn - he was genuinely as baffled by me as I was by him. And this in spite of the fact that, if there was a family vote taken, I'm betting my siblings would say that I'm the one most like him.

My father is gone, but my striving for self approval isn't. I wonder what threads off my loom my children will chose to incorporate into their own tapestries. I'm hoping that my goofball sense of humour and affectionate nature are remembered more often that my outbursts of temper.

When I married a very smart man and had a couple of endearing and precocious sons I felt that I'd achieved a nod of approval. He agreed that I'd chosen well, and he thought I was a good mom. He would have enjoyed fascinating conversations with my older son Sam, and would've been thrilled to see my younger son's love of mathematics, and to know that he'd graduated with a degree in Math and Computer Science. He'd be bursting his buttons with pride that Dan made the Dean's list and graduated with distinction. And he would've danced up a storm at the wedding on Saturday - as long as he had legs he would've danced.

Happy Fathers' Day, Dad.

Rest in peace - I will dance for you.