Father’s Day thoughts

It is only April and most writers think about Mother’s Day, but this is what I have wanted to write about for many years. Why? Because I had no father! Oh, yes my mother was married when I was born, but my father died when I was 22 months old. I have no recollection of him at all, only stories told to me about him.

I had a lot of father figures growing up such as uncles, my mother’s sister’s husband who I called daddy until I was 17. My father’s brother who seemed to care for me almost as much as he did for his own daughter. But I had no father. I was told that for my first Christmas my father came into our apartment wearing a Santa Claus suit bringing presents in a burlap bag. Of course my mother said he scared me half to death and made me cry. Maybe this is why I still love the idea of Christmas presents.

I had no buffer between my mother and me. That would be a father or daddy. There was no daddy to wipe away my tears because I had a bad day at school. There was no daddy who could take me to the corner store for an ice cream. There was no daddy to read me a book or tell me a story at bedtime. There was no daddy who would eat the veggies I did not like from my plate when my mother wasn’t looking. There was no daddy to tell me I was the most beautiful princess in the world as I twirled around, showing off a new dress.

I could not go to a Father/Daughter dance at school. Who would want to go with an uncle? There was no father to give me away at my wedding to the man I loved who had no father either. At least his father lived until he was 15 so he had many memories. My memories are all make believe.

When I was younger everyone who had known him, even my cousin Irving who had been the page boy at my parent’s wedding, loved him. Everyone told me stories of how wonderful and good he was. I have many pictures even one taken of my parent’s engagement. I have their wedding picture hanging above mine on the wall in my living room.

I have spent 80 years wondering how different my life might have been had my father lived. So, when my husband died at age 68, I still had a lot of my life to live alone. My two younger daughters got married; they too missed their daddy. My youngest grandson got married (how proud his mother’s daddy would have been) and presented me with two lovely little great-granddaughters and one darling little great-grandson.

Seems my family kept growing and keeps going on. My two oldest granddaughters are getting married this year. And let me not forget to congratulate one of my younger granddaughters who will celebrate her bat mitzvah this May. Now I will once again be replacing my daughter’s daddy on the bimah as I did at my each of my two older grandsons’ bar mitzvah ceremonies. Happy Father’s Day.

ROSE EPSTEIN lives in Wakefield.