When my dad was 65, I was 25. He had been a widower for 9 years and was living with my stepmom, Margaret, in Montreal. They lived in a high-rise apartment in Cote St Luc and Dad would still go to the odd Masonic meeting while Margaret was very involved in her United Church. My stepbrother, Bobby Willies, had two young children and lived in the West Island of Montreal so they saw them quite a bit as well. And my sister, Mavis, lived in Maryland (or was it New Jersey?) with their two sons so Margaret and Dad went down to visit them as well. Mavis and Neill had a summer cottage at Lake George and the folks enjoyed going to see them.
And I? Well, at that point, 25, I was just about to go off on my first grand adventure, on a 21-day camping trip around Europe. Unmarried, I really didn't fit with the family scene although I did usually go to Christmas lunch and if my sister were in town visiting, I would come over from my downtown apartment to see them.
Until my European trip,I hadn't really traveled very far, a "Suntours" week in Freeport, Bahamas, with my college friend Jean, a two-week trip to the Yucatan with a workmate, Marsha. That year, though, I met a friend whilst working at McGill who told me about the fun of bus tours. She gave me a brochure and I decided, with three weeks' vacation from McGill, that would be a fun thing to do. The adventure was wonderful and a blog post in itself.
Dad was very supportive of the trip. He had gone to Europe once as a chaperone with the Montreal Water Polo Club through the Boys' and Girls' team, in 1966. Not sure how he ended up chaperoning the team as Dad was not sporty in the least. But he did and he came back with loads of great photos and very enthusiastic about European travel. He had travelled to Scotland once as a child--he was 8 years old. My grandmother had got homesick for the "auld country" and my grandfather said if she was that homesick she might as well go back. In 1919. Just after World War 1. Dad described how Grandma was seasick most of the voyage (she was also pregnant with my Aunt Phyllis so that can't have helped) so he got to explore the ship and meet a lot of the sailors. He said he would have loved to have become a sailor himself but my grandfather had a hard time finding work at the time when Dad would have been able to sign up (late 1920s) so he gave up his ideas of sailing the seas and settled down to work as an apprentice draughtsman. He went to high school at night and continued his training, eventually becoming a plant manager for a heavy equipment company in Montreal.
Dad didn't marry until 1939--when he was 28 years old. He had met my mother at work where she was a secretary and quite the live wire. She had a great sense of fun and Dad was, in her words, the "Robert Taylor" of the workplace. (For those of you who don't know Robert Taylor, he was a matinee idol in the 1930s.) Although they were very much opposites--while Dad was well respected and popular, he was actually very quiet and serious--and of course he was Protestant and she was Roman Catholic, they married in October in St. Aloysius in Montreal.
They honeymooned at the New York World's Fair and came home to their small flat in east end Montreal. Dad worked for a war support industry so didn't enlist in the military during World War 2. My sister Mavis was born in March 1942 and I was born in May 1952. A long stretch between us but there could have been miscarriages. My father told me, when I was an adult and doing genealogy, that there had also been a stillborn son about two years before I came along.
I loved my father when I was a child although he wasn't a very hands-on father. He was a traditionalist, I was a girl, so he didn't include me in his woodworking projects (he was an excellent carpenter) nor did we do any sports back then. On summer vacations in the Eastern Townships he taught me to swim and helped me learn to waterski. He didn't believe in women going to college and, had my mother not died and my sister not pressured him, I don't think he would have paid for my first two years at university. We didn't have a close relationship from the time my mother died until, oh, I guess when I was becoming successful as a university administrator in my 30s. Not entirely his fault. I resented him for many years for the parent who was left behind. And he didn't know how to deal with a daughter in the "swinging 60s."
But we did grow closer because as I grew older I realized how wise he was. Opinionated--OH YES!! But wise. And stalwart. No matter how angry he would get with my life choices, he never cut me off. Told me to stand on my own two feet. Told me he didn't approve. But he was there. And eventually, after my sister died and I moved into my 40s, we grew very close. And that is what I miss today. That sense of surety. The rock (which I used to interpret as stone, but there's a difference.)
I am what I am today in large part of him. Through him I learned to be strong. That the world doesn't owe me anything but, at the same time, that everything can be overcome.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn't mean I'm over cause you're gone
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, stronger
Just me, myself and I
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone"
--What Doesn't Kill You (Jörgen Elofsson, Ali Tamposi, David Gamson, and Greg Kurstin, Kelly Clarkson)
When yet another love affair ended badly, when a job ended, this is the philosophy that my Dad taught me. It could sound bitter but, no, it's not. Because I have built on what I learned from Dad and softened it so that, yes, I am strong but I am also loving and loved. My father didn't have a strong belief in a traditional God, although he always said he had his own faith. He loved watching the Crystal Cathedral on Sunday mornings and enjoyed going to church with Margaret and sometimes with me. His acceptance of my conversion to the Mormon faith meant a lot to me.
Dad, you loved me in your own way and taught me that love can be tough and still be love.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
"It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
But I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you."
--Wind Beneath My Wings (Jeff Silbar Larry Henley)
And I? Well, at that point, 25, I was just about to go off on my first grand adventure, on a 21-day camping trip around Europe. Unmarried, I really didn't fit with the family scene although I did usually go to Christmas lunch and if my sister were in town visiting, I would come over from my downtown apartment to see them.
Until my European trip,I hadn't really traveled very far, a "Suntours" week in Freeport, Bahamas, with my college friend Jean, a two-week trip to the Yucatan with a workmate, Marsha. That year, though, I met a friend whilst working at McGill who told me about the fun of bus tours. She gave me a brochure and I decided, with three weeks' vacation from McGill, that would be a fun thing to do. The adventure was wonderful and a blog post in itself.
Dad was very supportive of the trip. He had gone to Europe once as a chaperone with the Montreal Water Polo Club through the Boys' and Girls' team, in 1966. Not sure how he ended up chaperoning the team as Dad was not sporty in the least. But he did and he came back with loads of great photos and very enthusiastic about European travel. He had travelled to Scotland once as a child--he was 8 years old. My grandmother had got homesick for the "auld country" and my grandfather said if she was that homesick she might as well go back. In 1919. Just after World War 1. Dad described how Grandma was seasick most of the voyage (she was also pregnant with my Aunt Phyllis so that can't have helped) so he got to explore the ship and meet a lot of the sailors. He said he would have loved to have become a sailor himself but my grandfather had a hard time finding work at the time when Dad would have been able to sign up (late 1920s) so he gave up his ideas of sailing the seas and settled down to work as an apprentice draughtsman. He went to high school at night and continued his training, eventually becoming a plant manager for a heavy equipment company in Montreal.
Dad didn't marry until 1939--when he was 28 years old. He had met my mother at work where she was a secretary and quite the live wire. She had a great sense of fun and Dad was, in her words, the "Robert Taylor" of the workplace. (For those of you who don't know Robert Taylor, he was a matinee idol in the 1930s.) Although they were very much opposites--while Dad was well respected and popular, he was actually very quiet and serious--and of course he was Protestant and she was Roman Catholic, they married in October in St. Aloysius in Montreal.
They honeymooned at the New York World's Fair and came home to their small flat in east end Montreal. Dad worked for a war support industry so didn't enlist in the military during World War 2. My sister Mavis was born in March 1942 and I was born in May 1952. A long stretch between us but there could have been miscarriages. My father told me, when I was an adult and doing genealogy, that there had also been a stillborn son about two years before I came along.
I loved my father when I was a child although he wasn't a very hands-on father. He was a traditionalist, I was a girl, so he didn't include me in his woodworking projects (he was an excellent carpenter) nor did we do any sports back then. On summer vacations in the Eastern Townships he taught me to swim and helped me learn to waterski. He didn't believe in women going to college and, had my mother not died and my sister not pressured him, I don't think he would have paid for my first two years at university. We didn't have a close relationship from the time my mother died until, oh, I guess when I was becoming successful as a university administrator in my 30s. Not entirely his fault. I resented him for many years for the parent who was left behind. And he didn't know how to deal with a daughter in the "swinging 60s."
But we did grow closer because as I grew older I realized how wise he was. Opinionated--OH YES!! But wise. And stalwart. No matter how angry he would get with my life choices, he never cut me off. Told me to stand on my own two feet. Told me he didn't approve. But he was there. And eventually, after my sister died and I moved into my 40s, we grew very close. And that is what I miss today. That sense of surety. The rock (which I used to interpret as stone, but there's a difference.)
I am what I am today in large part of him. Through him I learned to be strong. That the world doesn't owe me anything but, at the same time, that everything can be overcome.
"What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone
What doesn't kill you makes a fighter
Footsteps even lighter
Doesn't mean I'm over cause you're gone
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger, stronger
Just me, myself and I
What doesn't kill you makes you stronger
Stand a little taller
Doesn't mean I'm lonely when I'm alone"
--What Doesn't Kill You (Jörgen Elofsson, Ali Tamposi, David Gamson, and Greg Kurstin, Kelly Clarkson)
When yet another love affair ended badly, when a job ended, this is the philosophy that my Dad taught me. It could sound bitter but, no, it's not. Because I have built on what I learned from Dad and softened it so that, yes, I am strong but I am also loving and loved. My father didn't have a strong belief in a traditional God, although he always said he had his own faith. He loved watching the Crystal Cathedral on Sunday mornings and enjoyed going to church with Margaret and sometimes with me. His acceptance of my conversion to the Mormon faith meant a lot to me.
Dad, you loved me in your own way and taught me that love can be tough and still be love.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
"It might have appeared to go unnoticed,
But I've got it all here in my heart.
I want you to know I know the truth, of course I know it.
I would be nothing without you."
--Wind Beneath My Wings (Jeff Silbar Larry Henley)
Thank you for writing this. I enjoyed getting to know your dad better.
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