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I never cried for my father

March 31, 2006 By pia

Thank you all for supporting me through my nineteenth nervous breakdown. Well more like nineteenth hundred, but I haven’t known most of you that long. Sure you’re thankful for that. I will return all comments over the weekend and/or during the week, I hope. Really want to get the pages of truly great things–and some a bit sarcastic–but hey I’ll take a cab ride with Tom Waits anytime–people have said about me and/or Courting. Though we are one and the same. Sometimes even I think I’m the Courting Pin-up

It’s 62 degrees out so I’m going out. And I will change the late great Warren Zevon’s saying from “enjoy every sandwich,” to “enjoy every salad,” because truthfully I can’t remember the last time I had a sandwich. Have a great weekend. Spring has finally sprung here.

When my father died, fifteen years ago tonight, I didn’t cry. My mom and sister did. I didn’t cry at the funeral or for so many years when other tragedies came and went, and I had somehow lost that ability.

Then Katrina happened. And I cried for everybody who lived in New Orleans, for 9/11, for my mom, for my dad, and for this wonderful but flawed country that I have truly begun to only know well since I began blogging.

I bought into all the blue and red states myths before I began to blog. I was so provincial and so sure about false myths. In my heart I think I believed that I was a bit better than thou because I’m a New Yorker.

Don’t think that way anymore. And you all helped me relearn to cry. The empathy and support that I have found in people from across America and across the world amazes me.

When I went to see Light in the Piazza based on a book my mom and I had read when I was thirteen, on the Tuesday of the levees, I cried for every person stuck in New Orleans, I cried for my country for it become mine by then, and for a government none of us deserve to have.

Even my dad, neocon that he was would have hated our government for its gross failure to act. I’m not psychic though some people think that I am. If I knew, what was Condi Rice doing at Spamalot the next night–Wednesday–can’t stress that enough?

I know my dad would have hated Karl Rove for that horrible statement uttered last June about “liberals wanting therapy for terrorists…” He wasn’t talking about “liberals.” He made that statement in New York, home to the only civilian terrorist attack in history really, for a reason, a reason that wasn’t lost to me or to any person in this amazing though Disneyfied city.

What was it, a week later, that he was outed for Plamegate? Still during Katrina our President gave him more responsibilities not less.

I never cried for my father for many reasons. One was because I knew him so well that he lived on in my heart. Though the memories are beginning to be sepia tinged, they are still there. My father’s compassion was well known. When times were tough for his clients, he let them owe him, or he was paid in kind. I own an original oil painting that served as a cover for a romance novel; have the cover also.

When his poker game consisted of mostly artists and writers, and one was struggling, my father would insist that the pot be turned over to that person

My father was the chief American CPA for a very large Asian company. He began to realize that they weren’t always ethical, and wanted him to do things that skirted the law. Actually he showed me the documents as I was a paralegal manager then, and I translated from legalese to English.

They wanted him to shoulder all responsibility for much that happened in the American branches. They paid him very well, and he only was just beginning to suspect them of doing shady things. He walked. Wow did he walk. I was never so proud of him. He wouldn’t have gotten into trouble. The things weren’t clearly illegal or unethical, they just smelled wrong.

Can’t stand the smell, get out of the kitchen. In my father’s case that was all he could do.

But I know that as neo-con as he became about foreign issues, this government would have been too much for him. I know that my father would be proud that I have stood up and have been counted as somebody who in no way shape or form can ever be silent about this government.

Last night when I lit the candle, I cried as I have so often since Katrina. It gave me a headache but I felt better and stronger. My niece, my father’s granddaughter will grow up in a stronger better America. She will grow up in the America we all deserve, because in this past year some remarkable things have happened.

Blogging has brought things to the forefront, political bloggers have uncovered much wrong doing and bless them for that. Personal bloggers have found commonalities that we never knew could have existed before the advent of blogging.

Blogging has truly changed me and I thank each person who has helped me learn that it’s okay to express feelings and emotions.

Today is also the first anniversary of Terri Schiavo’s death, and I don’t know of a sadder one. I would still like to know how much the special Palm Sunday Joint Session of Congress cost, in total–with all or most members returning just for the day or weekend.

I do know my father’s views on living without a functioning brain, and I know that he would have been proud that I stood up when it counted. The governments very sick response to Terri’s death would have made him hate it if nothing else had.

Then there non-action on Katrina, the worst natural disaster ever to befall this great but so flawed country.

I am proud to have stood up. I am proud to be one of the founding members of BIO, the first liberal blog to give a voice to everybody. Steve, not our Steve O, can tell you how much we fought last year, and how much we have found in common. Though we will never be on the same side in some issues, we are both Americans who love our country, and want to see it be truly great again.

My father was all about politics, and a zillion other thing, but every night at the dinner table we did discuss the issues of the day. Our holiday dinners, and I think about Passover soon coming up, were filled with over 40 people all screaming at once. Some even made picket signs. I have always been convinced that my father thought Woody Allen’s Hannah and her sisters was about our family’s Thanksgivings.

My father was a contradictory person. When I was little I thought that there was one film star in the world, Charlie Chaplin, because my father took me to see all his blacklisted films at The Museum of Modern Art. It did leave me with a life long aversion to silent films–hey I was three–and weekly Charlie Chaplin films were just too much for me.

I quickly learned to understand that he was doing a great thing by taking me to see a man who was banished from America for having sex with Ona O’Neil who he did marry, and I do believe that they were happily married.

During the Impeachment hearings my mom and I thought of her husband, my father often, for he would have hated it. It would have embarrassed him out of his neocon mode. The cold war was over; now the war for America began.

We can’t let people with antiquated notions of good and evil win this one. I want my niece, my Goddaughter, Little Luce and all the kids I know and love, to know that I stood up when it counted.

Before I was born my parents went to every session of Alger Hiss’s trial–look him up, I’m too lazy. In later years their accounts differed, but I do remember the stories they both told me before I was old enough to understand, as they understood the importance of teaching children to love but to never blindly obey the government.

And yes with all my heart and more, I do support the troops. May they come home soon from this fiasco of a war.

May the memory of my parents make sure that I always do the right thing.

This is a personal blog. The First Amendment doesn’t apply here. I do delete comments. Want to fight me? Bring it on! to BIO, where we do have operators standing around waiting to take your call. No we don’t, but it’s a good line.

At BIO we began buying body armor for the troops months ago. We won’t let them wear defective government grudgingly issued armor. We want them home today, but as long as they’re in Iraq, let them be as safe as possible

Filed Under: my parents, New York Stories Tagged With: Adoption, Aging, my parents, New York Stories, personal essays

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Comments

  1. Marinade Dave says

    March 31, 2006 at 9:43 pm

    Very nice piece, Pia. It made me feel all warm and tingly inside. And patriotic.

  2. sage says

    March 31, 2006 at 10:37 pm

    the more I read about your dad, the more I grieve for not having the opportunity to know him. I like your line, “To love but to never blindly obey the government.”

  3. josh says

    March 31, 2006 at 11:07 pm

    Hey girlfriend.

    The Terry Schiavo case was one of the ugliest, saddest displays yet of the dangers that the so-called Christian Right pose to our way of living. If I live to be 100 I will never understand exactly when and how hatred and bigotry became “Christian;” yet hatred and bigotry seem to lie at the center of every concerted Xtian Right movement. Nor will I understand how the zealous pursuit of material wealth has become “Christian,” despite the blather from some on the Christian Right about “God wants you to be prosperous.” (The God who posts at my blog is indifferent about it.)

    With the Schiavo case, we saw the Republicans in congress tripping over each other to coddle the lunatic fringe, dragging a private and personal matter into the highest public forum we have, for the purposes of political grandstanding. It never mattered whether you thought Schiavo’s husband was right or wrong; whatever your position, this atrocity did not belong on the agenda of the government of the United States. Schiavo showed Americans how ugly the Right can be; then Katrina showed how incompetent they are.

    Regarding Katrina, your dad, and crying: I’ve found that sometimes when we cry for one thing, really we’re crying for another. You never know…

  4. sandra says

    March 31, 2006 at 11:17 pm

    very insightful and thoughtful posting. i’m with you in all departments. did i see on the news last night that they are taking away all non government issued protective gear for the troops? i assume this means they will be upgrading what they issue and sending out more….

  5. Bone says

    March 31, 2006 at 11:28 pm

    Excellent, Pia. As usual, everything is so intricately woven together.

    I couldn’t cry at my grandmother’s funeral. She was my last living grandparent. I was 19 and a pallbearer. I tried to cry. I wanted to, but couldn’t. Did later.

  6. Cowgirl says

    April 1, 2006 at 12:44 am

    Excellent post. You kick those things out like clockwork.

    The relationship that you I had I envy.

    Blogging has taught me more about myself. There are some pretty awesome people out there, especially some of those that read your blog. And of course you.

    Josh is right when he wrote “I’ve found that sometimes when we cry for one thing, really we’re crying for another.” I don’t cry about much. I keep things bottled inside, until I explode (like this past weekend). That is about once every five years, so I am good for another five.

  7. jacob says

    April 1, 2006 at 12:52 am

    Pia that was grand.

  8. Jason Gooljar says

    April 1, 2006 at 1:04 am

    There really is no red vs. blue or liberal vs. conservative. There are those who want democracy and those who don’t. I reccommend reading an excellent book by Frances Moore Lappe called Democracy’s Edge.

    We all at times are liberal on some things and possibly conservative on others. We have truly allowed ourselves to become divided. It works well for the GOP to divide, it’s their strategy. Look at what happened after LBJ passed the civil rights and voting rights legislation. The north and south were divided and the GOP capitalizied later on with the southern strategy. Actually it happened even before that with the southerners leaving the Dems for the GOP or forming the Dixiecrat party which Trent Lott and Strom Thurmond loved so much. Don’t forget Mr. Wallace and his “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” Yes, he so the light later on but still….

    If and when the Dems start using that strategy we’ll be worse off. And they can do it too. They can play to us and say we are all “on the left” and have to hate the other side. Then we’ll be even more polarized and it will come down to who gets more voters to the poll or who can rig the vote the best. And it will all be because of a percieved split within the electorate.

    As for your father and your loss, I’ll add that i’m 27, and my father died when I was 14. And watching him die has had a profound impact on my mental health. I have a panic disorder that sort of came out of that. However, I did not cry just like you did and it came back to bite me ten years down the line.

    I’ve learned a lot through therapy and medication, but I will say that being human ain’t all it’s cracked up to be LOL.

  9. josh says

    April 1, 2006 at 1:39 am

    Its a little trite to say, but the electoral college really polarizes things. In reality, the US is a whole lot of purple (what you get when you mix blue and red.)

  10. bonnie says

    April 1, 2006 at 3:01 am

    wow…

    Hope you enjoyed the day. It’s beautiful out there.

  11. cooper says

    April 1, 2006 at 7:30 am

    You are a beautiful courter of destiny my deah.

    as always.

  12. margalit says

    April 1, 2006 at 12:20 pm

    What a beautiful tribute to your father. I rarely leave comments, but this was too good to pass by.

  13. Katina Mooneyham says

    April 1, 2006 at 8:39 pm

    I enjoyed reading this piece. I want to add that I never cried for my grandparents until we buried them. I guess I felt I needed to be strong for everyone else until I couldn’t stand it anymore.

    A very thoughtful and thought provoking piece. Thanks.

  14. Doug says

    April 1, 2006 at 8:48 pm

    Pia, that was one of your most beautifully written posts. Really terrific. Your dad would be proud and Tom Waits too.

  15. Monika says

    April 1, 2006 at 8:49 pm

    There is no question that America has suffered during the last government. But not only within the USA. The rest of the world- which is quite big actually- has so critical and sometimes really bad views of America. I often stand up to friends and point out that you can´t generalize and just have an opinion about the American governemnt and include all Americans within the country in that opinion.
    As a European I must admit that I get the shivers when I hear “God bless America!” Not becuase I don´t want God to not bless America, but because I want God-if he exists- to bless the World! The entire world.
    America was-from our point if view- always a great country, something people aspired to travel to or even live there for a while. Somehow that has changed now, when I go around and ask I always get stupid answers. I was pretty closed minded-in hindsight- before I started blogging and got to know all of you. There are so many blogging fellows that I now call my friends and I appreciate their individuality, their thinking and their compassion. America had great people, as has teh rest of the world. It is just a matter of making those people be heard!

  16. mamaholler says

    April 2, 2006 at 12:10 am

    This is beautiful.

    When my sister died I cried. I still cry for her loss and it happened three years ago. I cry because I miss her greatly. I do not feel her near to me, though I dream of her, though I named my daughter after her and though I celebrate her life in memory.

    You do not cry for your father because you did not lose him, the same way some people do not cry when people they love move to another state. That is really amazing. I’ve never heard of such a thing before. What is even more amazing is that you could write about the experience indirectly in your blog and I, not knowing you at all, could understand it. How beautiful.

  17. Miz BoheMia says

    April 2, 2006 at 12:11 pm

    Well said amiga! Hope you are having a good week!

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About Me

I live in the South, not South Florida, a few blocks from the ocean, and two blocks from the main street. It's called Main Street. Amazes me too.

I'm from New York. I mostly lived in the Mid-Upper East Side, and the heart of the Upper West Side. It amazes me when people talk about how scared they were of Times Square in the 1970's and 1980's.

As my mother said: "know the streets, look out and you'll be fine."

What was scary was the invasion of the crack dens into "good buildings in good 'hoods." And the greedy landlords who did everything they could to get good tenants out of buildings.

I'm a Long Island girl, and proud of it now.
Then I hated everything about the suburbs. Yet somehow I lived in a few great Long Island Sound towns after high school.

Go to archives "August 2004" if you want to begin with the first posts.

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