worlds that never were

Last Tuesday, after I went for a swim in the morning, I locked my keys in the car, followed by a comedy of events that made me an hour late for work. After getting grease and dirt all over myself finding the magnetized set of keys that I keep under the car out of necessity, I was nervous. Nervousness caused me to get on the beltway going the wrong way. I pulled off at an exit and got back on going in what I thought was the right direction, only to be funneled back the wrong way. I took the next exit trying for an alternate route on 70, but instead got lost in Durham. But that’s not the reason that I added this category.

Yesterday, life slammed me hard. The hammer it chose was my emotions about my father. I haven’t seen my dad in ten years. During that time I’ve talked with him twice on the phone, once two months ago and once yesterday. When people ask me if I’m close to my father, I say no. I never expand upon that unless someone asks. Usually they don’t, and when they do I almost never tell the whole truth. It has taken me years of therapy to reach the level of denial I thought I had achieved. See my essay: Yes I Have a Therapist–and I Believe Everyone Should.

I thought I had worked through my sadness and anger toward my father. I didn’t think I had any feelings for him left. Then I got an e-mail from my aunt, my father’s sister.
I just talked with him (my father) on the phone. He does not have email because he is not able to use it. He has a walker with a seat on it and a wheel chair. He went to the doctor again. The doctor said the radiation killed 20% of his nerves. He is like a very old man. He has not been out of the house for 2 months. They simply cannot get him into the car. He is very helpless. He sleeps in his chair. He would like to hear from you girls. He says he can’t get well unless God heals him.

After reading the e-mail I found myself crying while driving to the swimming pool. I turned the car around and came home, too upset to swim or go to work. My father has recovered from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. But after the tumors were removed from his spine and he endured the chemo and radiation that was necessary to treat the cancer, his muscles are atrophying from lack of use.

I picture my father, the man who raised me, in a wheel chair unable to leave the house. The man who took me on 30 mile bike rides as a little girl, who taught me to play chess. (He always gave me his queen, and still I never beat him). My father might be sleeping in a wheelchair.

So I did a little research and found out, after a call to the Department of Human Resources in the county where he lives, that my father actually has excellent home care assistance in place. He has a nurse, a physical therapist and a person who takes care of his hygiene, who each come out several times a week. He’ll be starting occupational therapy soon as well. He has a recliner chair that he sleeps on. And he can walk some. It comes and goes.

So the writer in me decided to put this memory in storage and bring it out when I need an emotional hammer to build a character. I shouldn’t bury my emotions, I should use them. When I develop my characters I can keep this experience with my father in mind. Most of the women characters I relate to in the books that I love to read are flawed, many due to their childhood. In David Baldacci’s Simple Genius the lead female’s personality changed due to an event from her childhood. I can’t spoil the book to say what it was. In Kathy Reich’s series of books that the TV show Bones is based on, the lead character, Tempe, is a divorced recovering alcoholic who has trouble with relationships. And it goes on.

Fiction writers must create imperfect, flawed characters because that is the way people are.

Girls model their male romantic ideal on their relationship with their father. Women’s attachments are “mirror images” of how they related to their fathers. We instinctively repeat what we experienced in childhood, thank you Dad, even if it was the worst thing in the world. It’s what we know. It is from our fathers that girls learn lessons about the world of males. From our father women gain first-hand knowledge of how ordinary men think, act and speak. Fathers teach us how we should expect to be treated by males when we get older. They teach us by the way they speak and act toward us and the women in their lives.

So, I can write about a woman who does not have a loving dependable father. This imaginary character may actually seek men who deny her needs or reject her. She may always be haunted by the thought that she is unlovable. To compensate, she may become sexually active prematurely or she may fear intimacy. She will be imperfect and readers will be able to empathize with her.

In my real life, Harry is my rock. We took a walk yesterday morning. He listened to me talk and hugged me when I cried. He was late getting to work. So I’d like to share again this excerpt from a former blog: March. Sometimes, life has a way of reminding you that there’s nothing more important than being with the ones you love. Thank you Harry. I want to offer my sympathy to everyone who’s had a loved one pass away suddenly or had to deal with long term care for those they love.