A Text in the Night

or bonding through horror

Tonight, an out-of-the-blue text from Dad: “The free world needs a new leader.”

First, I want to mention, my father and I have a complicated relationship. Can I get an amen? I often wonder which is more common: complicated relationships or simple, sweet conversations and family dinners and holiday traditions that were never much a part of my life–at least not as a child. I tried to give my children the familial closeness I missed, but in the end they got divorce just like I did. Though they were saved from the more damaging traumas their parents survived, they surely have their own and yet we remain close. When I say I have a complicated relationship with my dad, I mean, sometimes it’s been tenuous at its best, volatile at its worst. Sometimes the relationship has simply been that we share DNA and haven’t yet murdered each other.

early Jess with Dad, Maryland/New Jersey 1976

But most of that is in the past. I’m nearing 50. Trauma has beaten the fight out of me. Nothing bothers me much anymore. Correction–nothing about my father bothers me much anymore. I’m not responsible for him and nor him for me, and by embracing that, it’s actually easier to embrace the full person with all their flaws. Our history is a bit damaged, but we’ve made it through. Still, when we are on the same page, it’s sometimes surprising, refreshing, and most of all, a massive relief. Does this sound familiar?

My dad can’t stand Trump. On this topic, we can agree and comseriate. I hadn’t talked to Dad for weeks prior to this text, but I had been thinking about him and wondering how he’s been feeling about the last couple months. My dad was a bonafide hippie in the 60’s and 70’s. Long hair, bandanas, Bob Dylan, cross country road trips, Vietnam protests, Civil Rights, make love not war, all of it. He wasn’t drafted–thank god–because he’d lost an eye to cancer as a child. He was adamantly against the war, yet welcomed his friends when they finally came home–the ones who were lucky enough to come home. When so many criticized and demonized soldiers instead of giving them the hero’s welcome like the previous generation, Dad stayed friends with them for the rest of their lives, despite sometimes differing politics, differing lifestyles, changing presidents, progression. Today they are gone, but Dad is still here, likely wondering how the hell all the rights and changes and laws that he’s seen come to fruition are slowly challenged. Or dismantled. Maybe wondering if his friends would still be his friends.

I just finished reading The Women by Kristen Hannah. It took me two attempts to read this one. The first time around I felt so bombarded by combat and descriptions of eviscerated bodies that I quit. But I also knew the onslaught was kind of the point. So I picked it up again because I was really interested in learning a bit more about the time period, about women in the war, and our socio-political culture at the time. It’s not exactly a Harvard deep-dive into all of that, it’s more a character study, but Hannah did a good job of showing a country divided through the lens of a family on different “sides”. The ties to the current tensions couldn’t be ignored.

Even though the book is supposed to highlight women’s involvement in the war and how they–and all veterans–were largely dismissed afterwards, I thought about my dad the entire time. Where he might have been when the war ended, when Nixon did this or that, when riots broke out and so on. But I have never once asked him because we don’t have a relationship like that–where I ever feel comfortable to ask him a personal question. Or that he feels comfortable to answer one.

Later, after a couple exchanges, Dad texted: “He made me sick” referring to Trump’s abhorrent, embarrassing, and dictatorial public scolding of President Zelenskyy in the White House. My dad has not always made the best choices or been a good person. He’s caused a lot of harm in his own life, and that of his family. But he has always been on the right side of history, and he’s usually able to balance his views and beliefs with those who disagree, and remain friends. These days, however, that’s being put to the test probably more than he ever imagined possible. Being around for nearly 80 years gives you the perspective to understand the pendulum swings and swings back and we all manage to get through. He’s usually pretty even-keeled about politics and changes. But I think this year has even knocked him around a bit.

“It’s scary,” he said to me later.

“Yeah, Dad. It is.”