HIP TO BE SQUARE
By CAROLINE BODKIN
I remember the year my father’s hair turned gray.
I left home to begin the fall semester of my sophomore year and he waved me down the airport gateway (still allowed back then) under a fan of dark brown that betrayed only the most gentlemanly array of gray. I remember thinking I couldn’t believe my rebellious teenage years had-n’t done the deed a few years earlier.
I felt comforted, thinking here I was, getting a move on in life, and there he was, still young and enjoying his.
But that year, as I returned for Christmas break, spring break and then finally for the summer, I noticed a steady, salt-takes-over-pepper trend. And that summer, the man who had always reveled in turning on my bedroom light when I tried to sleep past 10 a.m., saying, “You’re wasting the day!” was sleeping later and later himself.
He was tired. Somewhere between Continental’s second bankruptcy, his weekly commute from Salt Lake City to Newark, NJ., and having to put two kids through college, he had aged.
He was still healthy, seemed happy, and didn’t have to take any regular medications. But while he could keep up on a brisk hike in the mountains, his endurance for other things was waning: corporate America, disturbing news stories and the endless expansion of track homes seemed to unsettle him. If I didn’t know my father to be relentlessly optimistic, I would say he had become a little disheartened.
Parents are strong. They are fearless, protective, tireless and all knowing. They do not shirk responsibility nor do they balk at seemingly overwhelming duties. They know what’s right. They are inhuman in their ability to keep the world from doing harm.
At least, my dad was. I saw him twice this week. He had two Newark/Los Angeles turns with overnight layovers so I took him out to breakfast one morning, he treated me the next, and over blueberry pancakes and orange juice we enjoyed undisturbed, unrushed time to catch up.
“How’s your job?” he asked. “How’s your relationship going?” he asked without asking. “How much do you owe on your student loan?” he worried. “Do you find enough time for yoga?” he hoped.
And I had my turn: “How does it feel to be near retirement?” “Do you think you’ll want to keep working?” “If you teach, what would you teach?” “Do you have to work, or are you financially OK?” “So it would be for enjoyment, right?” Good, good. “Will there be a ceremony, a party, a sendoff?” Huh. So it just ends, just like that, after all these years, they just nod good-bye.
“Yes,” he said, “it’s like a hand in a bucket of water, you remove the hand and the water fills in the space like it was never there.”
A lull set in. I couldn’t imagine, working so dutifully for all those years, for one company, for one purpose, and then... the water fills in the space.
“But you have so much to look forward to,” I said. He nodded. “Where will you go, do you think?” “Certainly you’ll move.” “Yes,” he said, and he listed possible retirement locations (Ireland, Argentina, Montana) for he and my mom. After years and years of knowing it all, of being fearlessly protective and tirelessly responsible, he will be free.
Whether this is terrifying or exhilarating for him, I can’t say. My mom has had no trouble easing into the unstructured world of free time but my dad — always punctual, always reliable, doing what needed to be done, always doing for others — I don’t know how he’ll handle it.
Just as I was thinking this, a memory came into my mind. My father was taking a picture of my brother and me on the top of a mountain in Machupicu, Peru. His face was lit up by the afternoon light and perspiration from the hike and joy. I remembered, and then I felt certain, he knows how to be happy.
Now, as he pulls back from a bustling world, I emerge deeper into it.
In a way, I take all that he has given me and I replace him.
It occurs to me we are both at a beginning. (Caroline Bodkin lives and works in Los Angeles. You can )
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 25, 2005. Read the original PDF.