A Minute on the Lake with Father By ãJesse RHINES, 2009
The Unforgiving Minute by Craig M. Mullaney and Blue as the Lake by Robert Stepto are very different memoirs.They are both imminently readable while presenting men of different generations but who finished college, graduate school, married and become professionals, Craig in the military and Robert in academia.What brings them together for me, however, is the experience both men had in seeing their fathers drift away from their lives.They affect me, however, because I envy the time they had with their fathers before the drift.My dad died before my first birthday and neither of my two stepfathers replaced him.
Craig tells great stories of how is dad directly and in person taught him to live by principle.For instance, his dad’s determination to go to work always and early was a primary foundation through hard times at West Point and later grueling military training.But Craig also compared the difficulty of his military suffering and endurance with that of his father’s daily grind and found himself wanting until his dad’s pride was revealed a the Officer commissioning ceremony.
Stepto also reveled in the hard work of his dad who became a medical doctor and with his equally hard working wife moved the family up the social and economic ladder, making certain all the while that Robert got the best schooling possible.
These dad’s performed their duty both as each son learned over the years a father should and in a way that made each son increasingly proud.By contrast, I’ve tried to avoid any thought of how my dad might have performed.Mother praised his determination, intellectual and athletic abilities.My two older brothers, who did know him, complained that he was mean and spanked them hard for small infractions.But those two brothers turned out to be such bad fathers I’m afraid to wonder at where they studied the art of fatherhood.And praise from Mother was insufficient to make me see parenthood as an attractive prospect so I’ve had no children and never married.
But might that be different had I had Robert and Craig’s latter experience with their fathers?Craig’s dad left his wife for another woman and for the majority of Craig Army career at war in Afghanistan refused contact.Craig grew to hate his father.And Robert is saddened and hurt on his return home to Chicago and to learn that since his mother’s death dad is romantic with a woman, a years long family friend, but is cutting relations not just with his former buddies but also with the family, including Robert, now a much acclaimed professor.
I wonder which is worse, the sudden shock of learning that something taken as given and good is reversed or the long, gnawing given that all you have is fantasies of what might have been.