I have to start this by saying I absolutely adored my dad.

The man could do no wrong in my eyes and he held my heart in a superhero-like manner; faster than the speed of light, strength that could move mountains, part seas, energy that was undying and unrelentless and yet through all of his superhuman strength and courage still cradle and protect my heart no matter the cost to him or anyone else.

Well except that that is not at all how it went.

I suppose this is how many kids grow up feeling about their dads. And if your dad dies when you’re 22 and you’re pregnant with your first child, I understand how and why I preferred to hold on to that superhero persona.

When someone is no longer there to defend their position you are left filling in the blanks for them.

I sprayed sunshine and rainbows and glitter and kittens all over those blanks.

And, I understand why I needed to do that.

I also understand how that was another form of my pledging loyalty to ghosts.

When my dad was happy, in my eyes, the whole world was happy. When he was happily whistling in his own little world, completely ignoring the existence of everyone else around him, it was easy to overlook that he was self isolating and blocking everyone else out.

It was easy to ignore that was almost the only way I ever saw him happy.

He was happy. He was so happy that he was whistling happily, maybe cooking up one of his absolutely disgusting soup concoctions that always tasted somehow exactly the same or fiddling with some little gadget on the side table next to his favorite and well lived-in recliner.

Or riding in the car, with the chill of the winter air still trapped inside, each of us bundled up in our winter coats, happily whistling a Christmas song.

No one talking, conversing, engaging with one another. He could self isolate even in the chamber of a Buick sedan containing the warmth of four other humans who were warming up the interior faster than the heater could, and he was happy.

If he was happy it was a guarantee that so was mom and everything about my memories of my dad’s fucking whistle tells me that everything is right and well and good in the world.

I don’t know how long it will last but I know that if I stay out of his way it will last the longest. But I still want to be near. To soak up the sound of his whistle, like the warm rays of the sun on my face during a particularly long and frigid winter, like a gasp of air after being submerged under water for way too damn long, like the break of shade that a stray cloud offers for even just a few moments when the sun is just way too damn hot and you have nowhere to shelter, like the first warm day in spring that thaws everything around you, and the ground and the plants and the life feels free to emerge in to the world again.

I just want to soak it in and let it breathe renewing air in to the room again.

For me to feel safe and secure growing up, I felt a responsibility to be attuned to the mood of my father and whether it was a good energy or a bad one, the only right way to be was invisible. Or if not invisible, I had to be making myself useful.

I could make him happy if I brushed his hair.

I felt resentful towards this activity as I grew older.

He didn’t even say any words. He’d just drop the brush in front of me, run his hands through his hair and lay down in front of me.

I didn’t have words to identify with at the time but reflecting upon this today I felt disrespected. I couldn’t even be afforded the invitation, to be asked if I would please brush his hair. Or hear about how it would relax him after a long stressful day at work. It was simply an expectation.

Worth noting that it was an expectation of all of us kids throughout our lives, it wasn’t exclusively “my job” until it was just Markie and me living at the house.

If I protested or pretended not to know what was going on, I’d be met with some sort of a guilt/shame protest, in a passive aggressive form, typically in a whiny baby-like NOT DAD voice, “Don’t you love me?”

Is this how I earn security from you, dad? From people in the world outside these walls? Is this how I have to show you that I love you? To read your mind and give of myself even when I don’t want to – this is what love looks like?

I learned to find my own security exclusively in the “signs” of the result of my action. If he fell asleep = good. If he moaned (which I felt really uncomfortable about as I grew older) = great. If I stopped to pay attention and think about how to solve a puzzle on Wheel of Fortune that was playing on the TV and he reached up, annoyed, to run his hands through his hair to signal that I was not done yet, still not saying a word (though sometimes he would say, “5 more minutes”) = not good enough, keep going.

I learned to base my self worth on what I could do to make myself useful, push past any feelings of personal discomfort for the sake of someone else’s comfort, and/or else be completely invisible. And expect absolutely nothing in return.

Nobody directly asked me to do that. Right, not directly. I definitely was often on the receiving end of the growling voice between gritted teeth “Tina! When are you going to learn to keep your mouth shut?”

Saying things that I think or feel is upsetting to my dad (his happiness my sense of security). It doesn’t matter if that doesn’t make sense to you, or if you think there is some critical piece of information that would help him to understand you, or your, or a different perspective. It always makes it worse. You Have To Stop Doing That.

So I did.

I’ll never know Who He Was.

Or Why He Was The Way He Was.

Despite knowing and not knowing, I still love my dad with all of my heart. Though with the passage of time since his death it has lessened, I still find myself thinking about things that I know would have made him proud. And feeling proud on his behalf.

And I’d give just about anything to hear that whistle again.