The Sins of My Father

Does history repeat itself in the name of the son?

Ten years ago I received a facebook message from a cousin I had never met: Hey man, your dad was driving down the road with our grandmother. He had a heart attack and died. Sorry, dude.

I read these words from the toy room in my friends’ house in Wichita where I was staying as I wrote my master’s thesis while going through a divorce.¹ I remember closing the laptop and walking outside to the curb, sitting down next to my truck—the only possession I had left at the time—and bursting into tears. It was 5pm and I had not seen my father in ten years.

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How do I introduce you to my father? It is difficult knowing where to start since I hardly know him at all. Do I begin with the facts—born in 1958, making him a ripe old 19 when I was born and a young 57 when he died? My memories? There aren’t many that I can recall? The stories I’ve heard about him?

Justin, Dad, and me

I suppose the best place to begin is with my feelings, most of which are soaked in regret. I regret not ever having a “real” family—at least that’s how the 10 year old version of me conceptualized it. By then I had a mom and a stepdad and we had returned to Kentucky after our Cajun odyssey of 1980-1985. That meant on summer breaks my brother Justin and I would go to Uniontown, a shithole coaling station on the Ohio River, and also on Christmases. I don’t remember phone calls nor birthday cards. I hope there were some. By then Dad was on marriage #3, the most successful of his four to Rosie, a really nice and caring woman who did her best when we arrived, though Justin and I never showed her the appreciation she deserved.² Justin and I saw our stepsisters Meghan and Sherri when we were in town. Mostly then I remember the long walks we had because true to Gen X form, we were locked out of the house after breakfast and did indeed drink from the hose.

This was because Dad and Rosie both worked at a local factory, though when he could Dad caught catfish in the Ohio River that he later sold by the pound.³ Dad didn’t have much time for us, because of the necessity of providing for us. But he was an avid hunter and fisherman, and I remember how he loved to play guitar. He looked to me like Hank Williams, Jr.

If you say I look like him, I will punch you.

For a country boy, he had an affinity for science fiction. There’s a story that says he saw Star Wars in the theater on the day I was born and I do remember that we’d watch Star Trek: The Next Generation together at his house and debate our favorite cast and ship. Dad tried so hard to instill his love of the outdoors on us. He was a good deer hunter but a great duck hunter. I remember the cold mornings in a jon boat waiting for mallards to come in to land before he and his friends would bring down a limit that would later be served as dinner. Dad was a good cook, except for the spaghetti that he put mushrooms in. He always liked mushrooms.

I remember how as I got older I’d refuse to go visit. I know how that feels since my own boy did the same to me. It is a hell of a thing to walk around with a broken heart. It is something that you sadly get used to. I always refer to it as developing scar tissue over your chest. You can still hear the heart beating, but it is weaker and muffled. I know that I did that to my father.

Dad liked to drink. A lot. His favorite was whiskey, though I can’t recall if it was Jim Beam or Jack Daniel’s or Wild Turkey. I think the former or the latter. Dad was drunk often when we visited and as he got older, it intensified, ultimately costing him his marriage to Rosie, who God bless her held on as long as she could.

I don’t recall Dad ever hitting us though there was a healthy fear that he might. Mostly people knew that my father was a badass who could fight. And more importantly that his anger was on a hair trigger. I know that a man once broke into my father’s bait and tackle store and Dad beat him so badly that he lost the use of the pinkie finger on his left hand.

I am naturally left-handed too, though my grandmother slapped it everytime I used it to coax me into using the right one. I still play pool as a lefty and my left arm is noticeably stronger than my right.

It was Dad’s drinking, along with my stupid teenage rebelliousness, that drove us apart. As a teen, I would be the nerdy scifi kid who played trombone. Dad was the hunter and fisherman. I would not be that. While we didn’t have much money in Murray, we definitely had more than dad (this would later come back to haunt me). I would be better, whatever that meant.

A duality emerged as I consciously reimagined myself. My best friend Kristalyn says this is actually my greatest strength. If you’ve heard the pod, you know that I dropped my Kentucky accent long ago. I started to think of myself as a Chadwick—my mom’s line—and toyed with the idea of changing my last name from Herbert. I decided not to, thinking that it was best that people knew I came from nothing. What a fucking little asshole.

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One of the problems about growing up was my constant search for a father figure. I didn’t really know my dad, and my stepfather was a dude 16 years older than mom who belonged to a different era. He cared for me and Justin, but “children should be seen and not heard” was his parenting motto.⁴ There was never anyone there for me to show me the ropes, to help me mature, no one to guide me into manhood and teach me anything. I was lost. I remember how excited I was to meet my ex-wife’s stepdad John. Finally I had found my dude. We’d talk about fishing and cooking and wine and he’d talk to me about navigating the higher level of society I’d accidentally found myself into. And then he passed. And I was alone again. Fuuucccckkkkkk.

Dad never met my kids. Shit, I named the first one after John. But by 2008 Dad’s alcoholism was so bad that I couldn’t let him be near my kid or his mother. My number one rule is that as a father my job is to protect my kids from anything, including my own dad. On occasion he’d get liquored up and call and ask for money, knowing Christine was an attorney and thinking we were loaded. (We were not.)

By 2015 I hadn’t seen the man in ten years and had only spoken to him sporadically. I remember being so angry at him for not getting his shit together. In the months prior to his death I actually hoped he would just die so I wouldn’t have to watch him slowly commit suicide over another couple decades. When he died I was so strapped for money that I couldn’t even afford to go back or even contribute to the funeral. I have still not been to his grave.

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I remember one of the first things I felt when I learned that I was getting divorced was that my children were going to be damned to have the same childhood I did. Two Christmases. Getting moved back and forth between families like cattle. Not ever having a “real” family. Getting stuck with stepfamilies. I remember knowing with certainty that the same class dynamics at play with my own dad would play out here. My kids, inevitably, would know their mom’s family more than mine. I would not actually get to raise my own kids. I’d be a witness participant. But that’s it.

I remember bawling on the phone to my mom that I would become my father. I was so embarassed to be a divorced dad that when I arrived at my mom’s house I wouldn’t let my aunt or uncle see me because they had kept their marriage together.

I chose the University of Minnesota for my doctoral program in part because it was a good school, though mostly because it was the farthest away from Florida and that as a divorced father, I deserved exile.⁵ I do remember getting called into a professor’s office and getting reamed out because I had taken an A- in a class. “Something is really wrong,” Ye Esteemed Professor of Empathy mockingly told me. Well, no shit Sherlock. In fifteen months, my marriage died, my dad died, my stepdad died, my cat died and my dog died. It’s a great fucking day to talk about American history.

People often ask me how Christine and I get along so well. Well, you fucking work at it. And it’s not always perfect. We snapped at each other tonight. A rare dust up that occurs when old resentments raise their head. Try as you can, they never quite go away.

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Ten years ago on April 28 I considered calling my Dad for his birthday. It had been a couple years since we’d spoken. Maybe it was time. I didn’t call. A few days later and those opportunities were wiped away completely.

I think on my father now as I am wrapped in the daily sadness of being a divorced father. At 47 and with 48 closing in, I know I am likely to never actually find a family and that fear is real. Time is slipping away. Each night is a struggle with loneliness that comes with living in a place I do not belong. I fight the jealousy I have for dear friends who managed to keep their families together, who got to raise their sons. And I worry that when my boys go on to college that they’ll do so never having the father figure to guide them to their place either.

I call every night at 7pm without question. We facetime and exchange memes. I visit as often as I can afford. And god knows I want to go home. I am tired of this exodus. But I wonder if I am reliving my father’s life in some way. And I wonder if I was always damned to.

Jason

1. God bless you, Levi & Lynette.

2. Kids are kind of assholes.

3. We were poor in Murray, but even poorer in Uniontown.

4. Somewhat ironically, Dale and I became terrific friends after he and Mom divorced. He was a good man, but had different ways. He did the best he could. He passed shortly after Dad.

5. This self-punishment seems to be a trend with me. Ultimately I chose Colorado after failing to be enough for a woman I was crazy about. Had I better a better man—more handsome, more successful, more whatever—I wouldn’t have lost her, I told myself. Colorado would be painful but it’s not penance unless it hurts. Christine had also moved across the state meaning the boys were no longer within reach. At the end of the day, the sad reality was that I’d never have the money or opportunity to fight outside my class.