How do you say goodbye to vapor?
fathers, daughters, families, dysfunctional families, alcoholism, dementia, memoir, non-fiction
Published on:
Mar. 31, 2008, 2:33amWord Count:
3310Work Description
A daughter talks about her father's life and his impact on the family.
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week until the center asked that he not come as his singing was a
nuisance to others. He forgot her name or what she was to
him. It had to hurt her. He forgot all our names.
But he still said “I love you” to all of us for as long as he
could. See, as the words slipped from his mind, lyrics and musical notes remained. He still had a good voice but it was well used indeed. He would sing from the moment he woke until the close of night. His songs eventually faded too, but they were all we had left. It drove us crazy listening to him yet made us so sad we had lost him. And then the day came when the notes were silent too, when he silently listened to music all day long but said nothing. It was a yawning chasm of emptiness.
I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. I think most people learn what they need to know to do their life’s work and then conduct that work throughout the course of their years. But some people do all the great things they are supposed to do, their destiny in this planet, in their early years, leaving nothing left for the remainder. Dad was such a one. He helped so many people – I can’t tell you how many have come to me and told me his effect on their lives. But mostly, in the last forty years of his life, his chief job was being there for his children, or more so, grandchildren. Reading this you would be left to wonder how, but he did, in the small ways, the taking the grandkids for a walk even though he was blind kind of ways.
His gentle presence soothed until those years when he wouldn’t stop singing. Sometimes, truth be told, it would rankle. I would miss the words, the nights when we talked for hours, when he sat at the top of the stairs making sure we didn’t get up at bedtime. I missed the lullabies, the crying over fifth grade modern math, I missed being heard, being understood – I missed him. He had become as mist – a vapor slowly drifting off into the night. And I was less because of it.
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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