How do you say goodbye to vapor?
fathers, daughters, families, dysfunctional families, alcoholism, dementia, memoir, non-fiction
Published on:
March 31, 2:33amWord Count:
3310Work Description
A daughter talks about her father's life and his impact on the family.
This work is archived and isn't accepting critiques or comments. Why?
Print
How do you say goodbye to vapor . . . to a nothingness of spirit
. . . to the closure of a mind? The years have passed since
my father’s death and still I feel a longing for the real man, dead
so many years before that. It wasn’t that he was in a coma,
although that might have been preferable to him at times. For us,
we would take whatever scant moments we had that held any meaning
and rejoice in them. For in the everyday scattering of
minutes and moments, he was as lost to us as the extinct dodo
bird.
Dad was truly a great man, or such is still my recall. And
mine is not the only voice in accord. For the years in which
he was fully there, Dad was larger than life to my sisters and
me. Gentle, loving, soft-spoken, he provided stability in an
increasingly volatile household. We would go to him for
succor, for strength, for guidance . . .for peace. . . and always
found it there until his disease took hostage of his life.
As we grew, Dad was the voice of reason in an increasingly chaotic
household. My Mother was powerful, dynamic, a person of
whirlwinds and fevers. She was never someone I would
categorize as calm. In fact, such times were so rare as to be
non-existent. These days I find myself relating to her as if
she were the person of old when she has been mellowing. Her
days of fire and brimstone are only there some of the time.
So my dealings with her are skewed, never in sync. She is in
FM, I am trapped in AM mode. Yet I can still be 3,000 miles
away, walking down a street, and hear, clear as a bell, her voice
sharply speaking my name. I never, ever heard my Dad’s voice,
because it was not raised in such a manner.
That is not to say he wasn’t frustrated and angered by us – he
surely was. They used to call us the “Wild Eid Tribe” – Eid
being our last name, and it suited us. I was the mellower of
the five of us – the book worm, the one with
responsibilities. Even still, I was a partier come high
school and there were plenty of nights my father saw me stagger to
bed. Of course, he may have decided he was ill advised to
counsel me when he was smashed most nights himself by then.
But drunk or sober, he was a good man.
In younger days, my Dad cut a wild figure himself. Accepted
into Princeton, he proceeded to flunk out within the year due to
drink and dolls. He was a model with the Ford agency in New
York. I was forever damned in comparisons of the looks of men
I was interested in to those of my Dad’s. They had to be
equally beautiful in my eyes. Damned if I didn’t think, the
first time I kissed my ex-husband, long before I had fallen in
love, we would make gorgeous children together. Looks held
large sway.
He was also a singer. I don’t mean just any old minstrel, but
one who had a voice that could knock the socks off you. He
cut a record or two in those years. My aunt, his sister, had
a record of his for sixty years. When I’d ask about it she
would say she didn’t know where it was. But her children told
a different story . . . every so often she would listen to his
record and cry. It wasn’t until she died his record finally
reverted to our hands.
As a write this, I realize I must seem hopelessly mired in Father
love. Freud would have had a field day. The thing of it
is, everyone who knew him, well most of them anyway, held him in
equal regard. He had a gentle presence, but one that lingered
long after the man had left.
He met my mother one night when she was playing basketball with
some guys while in high heels. He fell for her when she fell
on her butt and laughed until her sides ached. Neither of
them had money. Turns out they had grown up four blocks away
from each other in Brooklyn, moved to
Rate This Work
Your honest rating will help the author improve.
Please log in to rate.Discussion
I can feel your true love you had for your Dad... and the empty lose your experencing since his no longer there..This is told from a little girl's eye's , which now your not. Excellent work.
he was as lost to us as the extinct dodo bird.
I personally think it would keep the flow of the first paragraph much better to revise that to "he was lost/dead as a dodo bird" or something similar. It seems a bit wordy as it stands.
...such is still my recall
This sentance definately needs some reworking. Maybe try "...or I remember it that way."
for guidance . . .for peace. . . and always
I think this should be "for guidance, for peace; and always..." The use of elipses here doesn't really make sense to me as the reader.
My Mother was powerful, dynamic, a person of whirlwinds and fevers.
I think the #1 issue with the writing in this piece are the really long adjective trains and incorrect grammer. Here, you're best bet would probably be "My mother was a powerful dynamic person; made of whirlwinds and fears." or if you wanted to keep the exact phrasing "My mother was powerful and dynamic; a person of whirlwinds and fears"
due to drink and dolls
As I was reading, this line made me stumble a little bit until I figured out what you were saying. Maybe consider being a bit more outright and just saying "women" or something. The phrase does not contribute to the readability of the piece.
Freud would have had a field day.
I think you should cut this out. The sentance seems to disrupt the flow of the paragraph, and the sentance itself is a severe cliche.
He met my mother one night when she was playing basketball with some guys while in high heels.
This is a stylisticly confusing sentance. At first glance, it seemed like the "guys" where in the high heels. Maybe something like "My father met my mother playing a pick-up game in high heels." I think you need to completely lose the indirect oject(high heels); it is an incorrigible issue as far as the readability. If you have to have the high heel detail, you need to use two sentances.
...a time when potato fields stretched as far as the eye could see. Civil rights were emerging.
That sentance is a very abrupt change in topic and content. You need to finish the paragraph about portato fields and the hamptons and start another about civil rights, or transition more gradually from potato fields.
Sorry if this comes across as nothing but nitpicking. I just know that when I want someone to review my writing, I don't want to always just want to hear about the content, sometimes the nitpicky stuff is the stuff that helps. I don't mean any of it as critical against the piece, just things that jumped out at me.
I thought this was a very powerful piece, and you seem to really bring the people to life; reading this I can practically see these potato fields, and feel like I've met the charecters. The story is told with a real sincerity and vividness. Stylisticaly, the first half of this piece needs a lot of work, but it clears up a lot after that. It seems like the issue is in the first half you seem to try and be very abstract and use somewhat "fancy" phrasing and flourishes, and in the second half you're writing changes tone into straight-up narrative. As a reader, I find the piece is most powerful when you are "telling it like it is". I think if you could make the first half as "plain" as the second half it will make this one hell of a piece.
"THIS IS WELL, WRITTEN, AND THE OLD SAYING OF TIME HEALS ALL WOUNDS IS JUST THAT A SAYING. I HAVE LOST SOMEONE DEAR TO ME ALSO MANY YEARS AGO (4) AND I REALLY MISS HER TO MUCH STILL".
Very interesting reading. However, The text is confusing in many places and needs a rewrite with corrections in the time frames. I relate to the feelings, due to my family history with substance abuse.
Good draft. Judy Kain