The last time I saw my father was 38 years ago. I was just sixteen at the time, living in Hawaii. I had no idea my dad was sitting in the same airport terminal I had just flown in to. As I walked off the jetport I spotted him and even though his back was to me, I immediately panicked. I wasn’t supposed to be 200 miles from home at a major international airport. There was no mistaking my dad’s military uniform or his profile from the rear. And there’d be no mistaking what would happen if he caught sight of me. He held a folded newspaper in one hand and a pen in the other, attempting a crossword puzzle while waiting to board the same plane I had just left. He was returning home.
I was running away from it.
My dad looked up momentarily to the large observation window in front of him and scrutinized the reflections bouncing back at him. I thought for sure he was going to see me so I pushed forward and disappeared in the airport crowd. One last look behind and I could see he had returned to his puzzle. I had sweated the moment, but I was finally free to be on my way.
I arrived in North Carolina the next night. My mother called my father to let him know where I was and that I was safe with her. He was heartbroken and angry as well. I wouldn’t speak to him when Mom handed me the phone, and afterward, I didn’t see or speak to my father for the next seven years. I didn’t even have the courage to write him a letter. During that time, I completed two tours of duty in the Army while he retired from it. I married. I traveled the world. I went to college. I did a lot of things, but none of them ever involved my father. Even when he called, I wouldn’t talk to him.
And I let eight occasions of Father’s Day pass without as much as a card to him.
When I finally did decide talk to him, it was on his birthday. He was 45 years old. I called him and we talked, without regret or blame. I felt for sure he would still be angry, but he wasn’t. He was actually overjoyed to hear my voice and to learn of my life in the military, my travels, and all about the girl I had married.
It took a lot of nerve for me to make that call or to speak up for myself. But I did. And my father, a man known to not care for words of praise for himself, listened as I told him, “I just want to thank you for being my dad. You were hell to live with, but you stepped up to the plate and took care of us.” I swear to you I could here him smile over the phone. He had quit drinking, got help for his PTSD, and talked to me as if I were a long-lost brother. It was the voice of the father I had never known but had always wanted.
“I never said I was perfect, Son, and thank you for the recognition,” he said. Somewhere in those words, his voice cracked and he sounded as if he would start crying, but he didn’t. He just coughed, cleared his throat, and told me he loved me.
“I love you too, Dad.” Those were the last words I would ever speak to my father.
Less than two months later his heart stopped in his sleep and he was gone.