"We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes."
- John F. Kennedy
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"We should not let our fears hold us back from pursuing our hopes." - John F. Kennedy
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August 28, 2008 | |||||||
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 Fatherly Forgiveness by Paul Currington Posted June 13, 2002 Laughing at Dad or making kind-hearted fun of him is easy. But, says one humor writer, forgiving him is a whole different story. NEW Reader Responses are a goodthing! Join the conversation! Fellow GoodLetter readers, I don't think I ever teased my mother. It wasn't because she didn't have annoying habits or quirks. She did, of course. She just lacked the one thing that made my father the object of years of ridicule and teasing. You see, my dad was a complete goober. My mother was professionally funny. She made audiences laugh wherever she went. And if you were going on a road trip, Mom was the one you wanted in the seat next to you. Whatever happened, Mom had something to say about it. Dad never tried to be funny. He made you laugh because he tried so hard not to. Anytime the family talks about Dad we always start with the snoring. He had a tremendous snore. It was his trademark, like Carol Burnett's Tarzan yell or the MGM lion's roar. I used to bring girlfriends over to the house just so they could hear it. When Dad fell asleep in the La-Z-Boy, you could hear him snoring in the driveway. My father didn't "saw wood," he clear-cut. I always felt sorry for his wife, Betty. It must have been like sleeping next to a riveting gun. At his funeral, I told Betty that somewhere in heaven there was an angel yelling at Dad, "Roll over!" I'm sure Betty is the only person in the world who actually looked forward to hearing loss. Once, on a road trip, when I was driving and Dad was sleeping, we got pulled over for driving without a muffler. Family members still tell the story of how Dad used to live next to a cemetery but was asked to leave because he kept waking up the neighbors. Dad also had sleep apnea, which meant that he would stop breathing in the middle of a snore. And like the man who doesn't wake up until you turn off the TV, everyone in the house would stop what they were doing and wait until Dad started breathing again. Every night after the news, Dad would fall asleep, and we would suffer through these snore eclipses. Betty would stop washing dishes, I would glance over from a book I was reading. Everything would stop until Dad let out a snort, and we could go back to our business. It wasn't until this year that I realized my brother and I have inherited our father's snore. If the Currington family has a crest, it's probably a big nose with a deviated septum. When he wasn't snoring, Dad was exhibiting his gooberness in other ways. He used to save broken things and then give them to me later as spontaneous gifts. We'd often sit in the living room watching the Discovery Channel. (We had completely different tastes in television. He liked Major League baseball, and I liked MTV. As we got older, we each wanted to please the other, so he would purposely skip past the baseball game and I would purposely skip past the music videos, and we would end up spending two hours watching rhinos mate. To this day, I cannot watch two animals having sex without thinking nostalgically of my father.) Suddenly, he would turn to me and say, "Hey, could you use a cordless phone?" "Sure. Uh, what's wrong with it?" "Nothing. Works great!" "No, really, what's wrong with it." "Well the ringer's broken. But aside from that, it works perfect." "So every time I walk by the phone, I'm supposed to pick it up to see if someone happens to be calling at that exact moment?" Another time, he gave me a camera with a shutter that wouldn't open. Along with the camera was a lifetime supply of flashbulbs. I guess he figured if I was patient I could use it as a flashlight. I saved that camera for years thinking one day I would run into an autistic photographer and pass it on. It's funny, but one of the things I miss most about my dad is those stupid broken presents. While he was alive, they represented something very painful. Every time he gave me something he had received for buying a Ronco food dehydrator or a lifetime subscription to Reader's Digest, it was a reminder of how much I was worth to him. It felt like he was giving me his junk mail. (One time, he wrapped up all the travel brochures he had collected during his trip to Ireland and gave them to me for Christmas. "Look at all the places I didn't take you this year!") Now I realize these presents were his way of saying that he was thinking of me. My dad wasn't around much when I was growing up. My parents' marriage was a series of separations ending in divorce. I barely knew my dad when he lived with us, and I spent even less time with him after he left. When I became an adult, he wanted to make up for all the lost time. Sometimes he gave me money; other times, he would call me up spontaneously on the phone just to say hi. I guess when you don't know what to do, you try a little bit of everything. It was his persistence that finally won me over. When you see someone trying so hard to make it work, you can't help but start to forgive them. That's when I started looking forward to the worn-out gifts. I began to see them not as junk mail but as small apologies for mistakes of the past. Now that I'm raising my own son, I wonder where I'm going wrong with him. I wonder what painful memories I'm helping to make every time I raise my voice or put him on restriction. Every time I give him a birthday present he doesn't like or sign him up for a sport he doesn't care for, I have a little more sympathy for my dad. Perspective is a choice. So is forgiveness. For me, the path to forgiveness always starts with a laugh. You can choose to be slighted or you can choose to be grateful. I know that when my son starts telling stories about his own goober dad, he will have made that choice for himself. :: Paul Currington Olympia, Washington Paul is a comedian and writer whose work has appeared on Comedy Central and ComedySpeak.com. When he's not telling jokes, he is home writing children's books. More importantly, he is a single parent of a very funny 11-year-old boy named Taran. Paul's favorite goodthing? "Finding out someone you have a crush on also has a crush on you. What could be better? 'You like me? No, way. I like you, too!' Then, you have to ask them when they first started liking you, and you have to tell them when you first started liking them. Remember the first time that happened when you were a kid? It sounds corny but it's still the best feeling in the world." (Thoughts on Paul's GoodLetter? Inspired by what you've read? E-mail us -- don't forget to tell us your name, where you're from, and if we can use your words in a future GoodLetter or on our Web site.) |
TALK ABOUT IT How has forgiveness made a difference in your relationships? Has it made it easier for you to laugh about things in the distant past? Share your stories and ideas. LEARN ABOUT IT :: Read Paul Currington's humor column, Apartment 8, on ComedySpeak.com Educate yourself about "enlightened" fatherhood and how fathers are taking increasingly important roles in nurturing and raising their children. :: The Father's Web :: Slow Lane :: A Father's Journal DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT :: Start building new memories! Find out a new way to connect with your father this Father's Day. Explore the "Fatherly Links" at Aristotle.net. Oh, yeah, and be sure to call your dad this Sunday...! Readers Respond Want to share your thoughts or ideas with other people who care about good things? Send 'em our way.
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