Dad

It's been nearly two years since my father died. He was 70 years old and before his death, even with his heavy drinking and over 50 years of smoking, always looked younger than he was. His hair was thin, but he wore a thick mustache with pride that complimented his genuine smile and straight (although not his own) teeth. A beer belly sat at his midsection, but his 6'0 frame would draw eyes upward instead of down. He had a commanding presence. A former high school English teacher, he was the most social person I've, still to this day, ever encountered which has always made me curious about my timidness.

I suppose I was lucky to have a supportive, though sometimes aloof, father. My brother and I both swam throughout our childhood into college and beyond for me, and both my parents were at every swim meet where it was feasible for them to travel. As people often do, my father became more relaxed as both he and we got older. We practiced so intensely and frequently that in middle school, I wanted nothing more than to quit swimming, but I was too afraid to tell my father so my desire never came to fruition. From the age of 7 to 22, the pool was my life; and my father's, as well. On the evening of September 11th, my parents got into an argument about my attendance of swim practice. My father saw no reason for me to miss practice, but my mother reminded him the YMCA had closed early. If it were up to him, I would have swam for those two hours and 6,000 meters without complaint or worry. Maybe it was his way of distracting both himself and I, but he never seemed to have ulterior motives; he was a man who said what he thought and a true patriarch. He also had a short temper and a drinking problem. After I got my driver's licence and could drive myself to and from school and swim practice, my father was passed out drunk on the living room floor 30 minutes after dinner. We watched the Simpsons as a family in the living room during dinner, my father and Homer Simpson bearing a striking likeness. There were times when my father was so incoherent, he didn't have the consciousness to scold the cat for eating his dinner from his plate and I think sometimes the cat ate more than he did. I would look at my mother looking at him and my heart would break for her and my blood would boil for him.

It took for me to mature to understand my father's faults and vices, and I can't decide whether it would have been better for me to ignore them as I continued to age or to confront him. As I spoke earlier of my timidness, the latter was never realistic so I chose to remove myself from him both physically and emotionally. As many teenagers do, I spent a lot of my time alone in my bedroom or with my older brother when he would come home from college, but I also liked to watch television with my mom in the evenings. If my dad were still in the living room, alert or not, I would rarely go downstairs. Just the sight of him infuriated me. I felt sorry for my mother having to spend all day with him; he retired in 1999 and my mother got laid off shortly after, so they were both at home.