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September fifth hasn’t meant much to me in my life. Or I guess, maybe I just haven’t paid attention to it. But it was the day my father was born, and since I lost him when I was five, I guess I didn’t pay much attention once I got old enough to celebrate it myself. Father’s Day didn’t mean much either. I only recently started to recall that it happens in June, and that’s because now, finally, I am a father myself.
Donald Frederick would be 75 today if he were alive. And since he is not, it’s up to me, I feel, to commemorate it for him.
He was a kind man, witty and sensitive, with a passion for helping people. He loved my mother, who he’d known since they were 13, and they were figuring it out, a young family, when his heart gave out while jogging with friends.
Apparently, I didn’t want to go to the funeral. My grandmother told me the story a few times when I was in college. She explained that it was just his body, like a house that no one lived in anymore, and the eyes were the windows, and the mouth was the door (and that I joined in with something young and silly, like “and the nose is the chimney!”). I don’t remember that, seeing him at his funeral. Or the ceremony. Really, I don’t remember much.
I’m ashamed and saddened to admit that I don’t really remember him all that much either.
I remember being excited that he was coming, vacuuming the living room carpet in anticipation, then hearing the signature whistle that I knew was him. Looking up at the diamond shaped window in the front door to see if he was there, then seeing nothing. Returning to cleaning only to hear that whistle again and see no one in the window. The third time, when the whistle made me look again, his face was still there, grinning at me. And I can still feel the thrill, the realization that yes, it was him the whole time, he was playing with me and oh he got me good.
I have a few pictures of him, of us together, of our family. And I’ve heard stories about him. But that’s the only memory that’s truly mine. It’s the only actual experience I have of him.
I look like him. I can see that. And I talk like him, make faces like him, am sensitive like him. I’ve heard this my whole life. His mother used to slip and call me “Don” a lot when I would stay with her, though who could blame her? Even if I hadn’t had his tendencies, she no doubt had a hole in her heart no one else could come close to filling. It never hurt my feelings, though I was too young to understand why it happened then.
He was gone way too soon, and I mean that in the most literal sense: I didn’t get to know him, he didn’t get to leave a trail, an impression, a connection for me to hold on to in my life. I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to find connections like that. I never lacked for anything growing up and wouldn’t trade a bit of it. But a father figure is something I just never had, that’s a fact.
I am who I am because of all this, and I had to travel this path to become that person. So I don’t regret it. But I wish I had known my Dad.
I wish he could have told me about his first concert and the music and movies he loved. I wish he could have heard my stories as I struggled to define who I was and offered advice to help me. Did he like any sports, was he a morning person or a night owl, did he love technology, would he have loved the internet, smartphones, Bluetooth? I wish I could have seen what kind of car he liked to drive, what kind of work he liked to do, what his favorite time of year was, and his favorite place to visit. What he loved to eat, and what he would never eat. What made him laugh the hardest, cry the hardest, and what made him so mad he couldn’t speak. I wish I heard things and thought to myself, “oh Dad will LOVE that” or “oh man Dad will FREAK”.
I wish it didn’t feel weird to think or say or even type the word “dad” and wonder if that’s what I would have called him.
And now, as a father, I think about my child, and wonder what I was like at that age, and what he was like. If she sees me like I saw him. If she’ll treasure these moments like I do or if they’ll fade as she gets older as mine did. And I’ll never get to know what he thought of her, how amused or proud he would be, how well they got along, how they amused each other. I wish I could know what he might advise me on how to parent or tell stories about me when I was her age. I wish I could see her through his eyes. And see him through hers.
So on this day, September 5th, 2022, when in some other reality, we might have been gathering somewhere to sing songs, give presents, and make him blow out a whole lot of candles, I will take a few seconds and think about Don Frederick, and wish him a happy birthday. I hope I get to hang out with you someday, and get to know you. And until then, rest up. I’ll have lots of questions for you.
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overthinking 