Imperfect Fathers, Imperfect Sons
On missing my dad, repeating his patterns, and trying to do it a little better
It’s Father’s Day, and I’m reflecting and remembering my dad and my own role as a dad to my daughters and now my grandson.
When I tell stories about my dad, they are usually upbeat and positive. The stories about my mother aren’t as positive.
My fiancée pointed out to me that when my brother talks about his relationship with our mom, it’s generally very different from my experience. Everyone has different experiences.
I always considered my father a trooper for staying with my mother as long as he did. Yes, she was a handful. Today she would’ve probably been diagnosed as bipolar, with a host of other mental health issues.
But my dad was far from perfect. I’ve heard all these stories about how he was such a ladies’ man and such.
My dad was married and had two kids from a previous marriage, and then he ended up in Venezuela in the late 50s and 60s until apparently he was run out of the country by some general. Apparently he was with this general’s daughter and got himself into enough trouble that he had to flee the country. (Sound familiar? Read this post about what happened to his father.)
Anyway, according to my cousin Grace, he showed up at her workplace in Panama, skinny and disheveled, asking if he could stay with her. He hopped on a cargo ship from Maracaibo and ended up back in Panama.
That’s as much as I can find out about this portion of his life—he didn’t talk about it, and that was that.
So I don’t really know how things were in those days, but I’m pretty sure my half‑siblings grew up without a dad, since they lived in the US. I don’t know if he fathered any kids in Venezuela—I’m sure he wasn’t around to see those kids (if any) either.
So we are all imperfect—and we pass our traits, good and bad, to our kids. I think it’s more nature than nurture, like we pass it on in our DNA.
I worry that I inherited the inability to form a long term relationship with a partner like my father did, and I fear I passed that along to one of my daughters.
I like to think I got some of his better traits: his ability to keep going, his knack for landing on his feet in strange places, and his capacity to love his kids in his own imperfect way. And on days like today, I hope I’m passing on a kinder version of all that to my daughters and my grandson.
Happy Father’s Day!
Live Long and Prosper
-Dan
