MaineCourse

Daughterhood

Chris Rad

It is very strange being a parentless person.  I don’t think it stops being strange.  I’ve been one for almost 20 years now and there are still tugs here and there that surprise me.  Not the horrible gut wrenching abandonment tugs that they used to be, but tugs none-the-less. The strangest thing of all is that my husband has been in my life almost longer than my parents were.  Of all the holidays one reckons with when people disappear, I’ve always found the toughest to be Mother’s Day.  I remember when I wished it off the calendar, even when I became a mother.  To be sure it gets easier with time.  Still, it’s strange to not be somebody’s daughter on that particular, totally Hallmark oriented day.  Father’s Day doesn’t affect me quite as much.  It tugs, but I don’t miss my father in the same way as I miss my mother.  His death, for many reasons, brought as much relief as it did grief.   I think of him most during baseball season.  I see him in my daughter’s eyes...we all have the same shape and color eyes.  I have his sense of humor, which was his biggest strength.  My father had three daughters and at some point we were all Daddy’s little girl ‘come caretakers.  But I came across this poem and it touched me so much I thought of him like I haven’t thought of him in years.  I share this with all daughters who were lucky enough at some time to have been, however briefly, a Daddy’s girl.  And for those who grew up to love baseball because of it.

First Lesson
-Philip Booth, from Lifelines

Lie back, daughter, let your head
be tipped back in the cup of my hand.
gently, and I will hold you.  Spread
your arms wide, lie out on the stream
and look high at the gulls.  A dead-man’s-float
is face down.  You will dive
and swim soon enough where this tidewater
ebbs to the sea.  Daughter, believe
me, when you tire on the long thrash
to your island, lie up, and survive.
As you float now, where I held you
and let go, remember when fear
cramps your heart what I told you:
lie gently and wide to the light-year
stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.

Tripping over your first sentence and throwing up the shields, I couldn’t get my mind around “parentless.” I thought you meant childless, as in, choosing not to have. But, no, you meant parentless, as in no choice to have. Perfect poignant prose, and I kinda wish I’d left those shields up.

Posted by Michael.

Family echo. I had the same impression and felt my defenses rise, and fall like waves, sentence
after sentence.
The poem left me feeling, well, wishing for a daughter.

Posted by peter.

Dear Miller Men, shields are a wonderful thing. I keep mine up by trying to avoid as much poetry as possible...too evocative. Thanks for the lovely comments. And Peter, go on now, have your daughter....

Posted by chris.

Lovely entry, Chris, the soft poem complementing the bang of your prose. Having also lost my father so much too soon, it reminded me of the loss and of the warm, warm memories.

Posted by also.

If anyone needs to reach me, I'll be in the woods meditating on whether to restrict Chris's offerings to stories about the Red Sox.

Posted by Michael.

When first I read Chris' entry, though I tried, I was unable to respond. For once in my life, I could not give words to my thoughts. You see, besides teaching me to love baseball -- among other things -- he also taught me that you do not often make naked your soul. So I have been quiet for a day or so.
However, since Michael really has harassed me beyond belief about commenting, I am now about to do a tiny striptease of the core of me, and of Frank, with the telling of a Daddy's girl story.
My father loved ritual, which is probably why he loved baseball. He taught me to recognize and continue those rites that give meaning and context to things. Was it any surprise then that at age nine I wanted to please him by winning the contest in the NY Herald Tribune to be batboy for a day for the NY Giants?
Because of my introduction to sexism the previous year -- when I learned all the Mass responses (in Latin) and appeared on the doorstep of the rectory prepared for full altarboy duties only to be summarily turned away -- I signed the essay for step 1 of the newspaper contest with only a first initial and my last name. Several weeks later we were notified that step 2 was a personal interview at the paper and S. Canning was one of the three finalists.
On the day, my mother dressed me up like a princess and off to work on the train with Frank I went. At the appointed hour, he took me to the appointed place in a taxi. The editors at the Tribune were nearly speechless when their potential batboy arrived in their offices wearing a velvet dress with matching ribbon and black patent leather shoes.
Trying to hide their dismay and embarrassment, the Tribune people gave me tickets to a Giant/Dodgers game and promised I could meet Willie Mays. But they did not give me a batboy suit.
Frank learned that day that his promise that I could be anything I wanted to be might be a little harder to keep than he had ever imagined.
But this Daddy's girl, while not so silently resenting the lack of the desired suit, did get to introduce her father to Willie Mays. On one day a very long time ago, Frank was S, Canning’s father, rather than S being Frank Canning’s daughter. I wish he were still here so we could remember that day together,

Posted by Another DG.

Susan, I am speechless. What a thrill that must have been for both of you and you made that happen!! "Frank was S Cannings father, rather than S being Frank C's daughter". You've got me wondering if I ever had a moment like that. I'll have to try and channel Charlie...perhaps when I graduated from College as I was the only one to do so. In any event, this is one of the most beautiful recollections I've ever read.

Posted by chris.

Posted by Michael at May 20, 2004 06:44 AM