Dinner at our house....
Dinner at our house was so very quiet. The dish clatter and questions dad asked - about our opinions on things in the world mostly - muffled into the silence. Mom's mutterings on starving children in India transmuted into sonic signals absorbed into the protective bubble of things unsaid around me.
Parsley flakes on the chicken, the fuzzy Japanese red rug swirl under the table, and the mound of spaghetti that appeared on my birthday - they made it into the bubble. Why parsley when it didn’t taste like anything? Why wasn't the dog allowed on the Oriental rug? Did I have to wait another year for a meatball?
Mom worked hard to curate the joyless space and fearful feast we spread for dad - since he would have it no other way. Dad did his part by leaving so often - so we could relax and nourish ourselves on chatter and laughter like children might do if they were hungry.
Dad’s been gone
35 years now. My childish hunger has been sated. Now I miss him and wonder at
what opinions I might share with him today - my bubble gone, my words claimed
and my heart found. What might he learn in my silence now?
207 words - Written for writing workshop (Kripalu, April 2011)
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A poignant memory painted with words that pierce the heart. Your dad Ken and I shared a childhood that was also sparse in emotional nourishment and satisfaction. I found that missing nourishment and satisfaction in the Fatherhood of God who sent his Son to ransom us from the futile emptiness and bleak despair of this world without love. Strangely enough, in spite of our father's (your grandfather's) failure to express that love in his relationship with our mother, the Gospel of love that he preached from the pulpit and his genuine attempts to demonstrate it in his relationship with his children and his parishioners was the source of my own salvation from a life of hopeless despair.
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