I spoke with my dad, 62, about to retire, about the project--reading him the project description. His response: "Woah, good luck." When I explained further that I was going to need his help, he was a bit more open. We talked for about three hours, starting with the beginning: my grandparents, working up to his meeting with my mother, my brother, then me, our growing up, and what it's like now that we're gone.
I never knew my father's father, and my father's mother passed away when I was 18. My dad has always told me stories about his growing up in a family, dirt poor--but richer than anyone with love. He told me how my grandmother worked at in his school kitchen, and my grandfather at an auto repair shop, and how his parents saved every penny they had to put indoor plumbing in his house around the time he turned 17. Every year, the one time they didn't scrimp on anything was Christmas. His father took out a loan just before Christmas, and they had a lavish Christmas feast, and presents galore--and for the remainder of the year, his father paid back his debt in order to qualify for another loan for the Christmas to follow. My grandparents' only hope was for their children to have an education, and have a better life than they'd given them--that they'd never have to struggle. My father's older siblings were loaned the family savings to pay for their college, and each had to pay it back before the next could start college.
My father worked his way through his undergraduate degree, got accepted to Washington University in St. Louis, and worked his way through dental school. I learned, for the first time during this conversation that he didn't walk at his dental school graduation. His father had just passed away, and he couldn't afford to go home for his services, and the dean's secretary pulled some strings to have his diploma mailed to Wisconsin--so he packed all of his belongings into his beat-up van, and drove home to grieve with his family. He bought out a dental practice in the small town where I grew up, and where he has been practicing for the past 30+ years.
He met my mother at a Christmas party, and they hit it off--started dating, and proceeded to date for 8-9 years before my mom sold her house and moved into my dad's farm house on the 300 acres he'd bought in the country. My brother and I were both accidents--my brother's story slightly funnier than mine, and a running family joke (long story--if you'd like the details, I'd be happy to share). My parents had a shot-gun wedding with immediate family only, and two years later, I came along and our family moved into the small town where my dad's practice was located.
When I was born, my mother quit her job as the head accountant for a Co-op to stay at home and raise my brother and me. We had a charmed childhood, and grew up in a little house built in the 1920's--the smell of which, I could still recognize--but would never be able to describe. It had god-awful multicolor shag carpeting throughout the downstairs, and tan shag carpeting upstairs. The exterior was teal and peach stucco (barf), and looked like a perfect little dollhouse. I remember the crystal doorknobs, and my dad described to me his memory of the first time he witnessed my little hands reach up and grab a doorknob--still not tall enough to turn it. I remember the heeeaaaavy wooden front door, and the clear plastic with a pattern covering the window of the bathroom. My parents had the master bedroom, and my brother's bedroom was down the hall. Reluctant to leave either of us upstairs or downstairs alone, my mother set up my nursery in the wide hallway outside their bedroom--which became "Anna's Hall Room" until I was eight and my parents moved me into the master and took the downstairs bedroom.
My father's most fond memories were, of course, Christmastime. All I remember was presents... presents filling the entire living room. It would take HOURS for us to unwrap them, and I couldn't tell you one of the I received in that living room--OTHER than these three: My moon-shoes, My cassette player with my cassettes (Bob Marley, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, The Rolling Stones, and the Grateful Dead......really Dad? What kind of music is this for a kindergartener?), and my light-up sneakers. I was sooo livid at my parents for not letting me have them for the first day of school, and apparently I told them every day (with my speech impediment and inability to say my R's), so for Christmas, they got them. That was the Christmas my brother broke my leg. :) My light-up sneakers and the shag carpeting wasn't the best combination, I guess. I loved to twirl, and my brother loved to twirl me, and mid-twirl.. ssnnnnnap! My leg fractured all the way from my ankle to my knee... I guess I screamed bloody murder, but I don't remember any of it---just the new sneakers.
I remember learning to ride my bike in the driveway with my brother, on the cracked and broken-up old asphalt. I remember when my mom decided to go back to college to finish her accounting degree--but only because she no longer came to volunteer in my classroom at school. I have no recollection of the sleepless nights she spent studying and working on projects and papers--just so she could stop by my class for a few hours on some afternoons. Frankly, I don't even remember the times she came to my classroom--just when she wasn't there.
Mom tore out the carpeting one year when dad was fishing in Alaska, and refinished the beautiful oak floors that were hiding underneath. Not one time did I walk into that house expecting to see the wood floors... for at least 6 years. My dad was livid (another thing I don't remember)--apparently wood floors were impractical?
I remember what it was like before my parents were people, too. When they were mom and dad, their jobs were to be mom and dad, and their entire lives revolved around their two children--our little league games, dance recitals, and piano lessons. I'm not sure when it was that I realized that my parents were people, but whenever it was--it's when we started getting along. I talk to them nearly every day, care about their well-being, their opinions, their ideas, their beliefs. They respect my decisions, my opinions, and my beliefs, and still worry about me as if I were 4 years old with a fractured leg and new sneakers.
I could go on and on and on about the things we talked about, the funny stories of the stupid things I did when I was little--the lessons I learned, and how my parents somehow managed to instill in me the morals and values that still guide my life. Each day, I see more of them in me--in the way that I think, the way that I treat others, the way I worry, and in my whacky sensibility that never makes sense to anyone but me.
My dad's memory is a thousand times clearer than mine, but the few things I remember clearly he completely agrees with me on. I don't actually remember many of the things I thought I did, but only remember the events through the home videos my parents were constantly making of their "two little munchkins." And when it comes down to it, the things I do remember were seen from a child's eyes, versus--my dad saw them through a father's eyes. In that sense, our memories of the same event are nothing alike.
I described my formal plans for the project, and my dad was thrilled with the materials I was using. He gave me some schpeal about if he was doing this project he'd probably go dig up a tree and cut off its roots and use that--but that's my dad. He's "Mr. Hunter-Gatherer," and although he raised me to be at home with the outdoors and in nature, and although I can split wood and classify weeds, mushrooms, and trees, shoot a bow, shoot clay-pigeons, and know--in-theory--how to build a log cabin........there's no way I'm diggin' up a tree. When I asked him, my father told me he had no idea what he would have done if he had been assigned such a project. He has a difficult time expressing himself in a lot of ways, and he said he would have been stumped.
That's about it, if you'd like more of the conversation details, I'd be happy to share them whenever!
NOTE - 9/26/2011 - Here are a few pictures of how my final project turned out:
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