My Dad
My father, Konrad, was the best-looking guy around. I didn’t understand why other kids had ordinary dads when mine looked like a greek God. My mother told me that when he checked in at the airline desks, all the attendants burst into huge smiles to help him. He wasn’t aware of the female attention he received and was quite modest. He did, however, spend some time on his grooming and tried to treat his hair loss by applying some daily oil to his balding pate. Blond well into his fifties, it wasn’t until he was about 60 that he grew out a full beard and we were all so surprised it was grey.
The feature I remember most about my father’s body was his strong shoulders. When we went swimming, I would hold on to his back with my little hands and he would glide across the pool. They felt oily, but I was able to hold on. He had long arms and it was easy for him to get across the pool in just a few strokes. He also had gnarly hands — his skin would peel from the result of working with his hands on the weekend — in the garden and on his sailboat.
He was 6 foot 2 in his youth, and shrunk as time went on. When I was a kid, he walked completely erect as I rarely see a person do. He had long legs and when he walked he easily covered more than 4 feet of ground per step. He was confident and easily accomplished what he set out to do and it was evident in his gait and step. When my father was in his 70s he became afflicted with Parkinson’s disease and his back fell forward right from his hips. His doctor said he didn’t have Parkinson’s based on his not having tremors but I diagnosed him on Wikipedia. He appeared exactly like the drawing on the Wiki page. A once tall, beautiful man became a shadow of his former self.
See myself through his eyes
I am the middle child and always the good girl. I had a bossy older sister and an aggressive younger brother who made their needs known by their loud voices and actually just taking what they wanted. I always waited for the last share, the last piece. I was busy taking care of everyone in my family, especially my mother who was often depressed and stayed in bed late. My father went to work each day and worked at home at his desk after dinner, not paying much attention to any of us. He was silent through dinner and my mother didn’t say much either. I think he knew that I was fine, always doing well in school and good at making friends. When I was 10 or 11 he bought a sailboat, and installed it at a boat club on the Hudson River. We went sailing most weekends and he invited my brother and sister but they didn’t want to go. I went with him the most. My mother detested the sailboat and everything about it. It was like his mistress and she was jealous. When I joined him sailing, he had a silent companion who accompanied him but didn’t make any demands on the quiet. In his respite from life, I was his quiet comrade.
How do you want him to see me?
When I was born, the 2nd of two girls, my mother says my father asked the doctor what were the chances he could have a son? 2 and a half years later, my brother was born and deemed a prince. He was named after my father’s deceased older brother and a great celebration occurred on both sides of the ocean. There were only 2 male heirs to take our family name out of all of 13 cousins.
The truth is, I wanted him to acknowledge that I was smarter and more driven than either of my siblings. My brother had serious ADHD before that was even a thing and he was sent off to private school and then later to another high school in our county. I could have really benefitted from either private school or a boarding school. I wanted him to see that I was the only chance of someone who would look after him in his old age, that my siblings were useless, going on in life causing more and more problems for themselves and they would never be able to be present for him. My sister was a talented artist, so angry, she sabotaged what she could become. The truth is I wanted him to talk to me and get to know me and understand my troubles and triumphs.
My father and I were close in his old age and he did know me better. I was there for him and visited frequently during his years afflicted by Parkinson’s. I accompanied him to Germany for 2 weeks and helped him straighten out his affairs. He thanked me many times as it was a journey he could not have made alone and was to be last, though he didn’t understand that at the time.
