Letter to My Granddaughters

Noa and Avery,

I’ve recently found an honest spirit, affectionate and without a tote bag of judgment. This friend has a great sense of freedom and yet she seeks more adventure. Elena is funny. We seem good for each other. We’ll move forward slowly believing that we want the best for one another. Sure. Why not? We are fortunate to have found each other.

My girlfriend has some likeness to your Grandma Pammy, her kindness and her huge smile and maybe more that I do not yet know. Yet she is nothing like her in so many ways. It is how the world works and how we all maneuver around this world. Elena is ebullient and demonstrative while your Pammy was more reserved and bashful, blending into her new world yet bending to many of its allures. Unless Pammy had a few drinks she was only quietly romantic.  With the aid of alcohol near midnight we swam naked in a 28th Street hotel pool. Later we learned there were cameras there but that night we would not have cared. Other crazy shit back in college, sure. We slept in the same bedroom shared with a Calvin cohort, a friend more of my brother. Dennis was out all night most nights. Even when he came home early enough to catch us before we were sleeping, Dennis was so wasted he fell asleep almost immediately after imparting to us, “Good night, Hank and treat Pam well, you hear.” We fell asleep after making love with him snoring in the same room.  We could be very crazy.

Most of our friends were doing some of the same crazy shit in college. It was a time of experimentation, we told ourselves. We tried to have it all. I won’t enumerate. Both Pammy and I drank far too much back then. Many of those same friends told me that they thought I would be the one to go to rehab.  After Pammy’s first rehab I could not maneuver in the world of our marriage with your Mom and your Aunt Molly. That was when I chose to abstain from alcohol. Instead I used marijuana.  Too much.

I experimented with several other drugs during college. I was rebelling against a religion that worked hard at controlling me and my friends. Pammy tried a few drugs but always came back to alcohol. Your Grandma Pammy was rebelling against a mother who worked hard at controlling her. And, frankly, I could be a dick when it came to my lack of empathy for Pammy and her mom. I would insult her mom.  I believed I was so much smarter, so much more informed and perceptive but I should not have been a dick.
To this day I still believe that Pammy’s mom was depressed and projected her disorder upon her children. The two youngest children, Pammy and her younger brother, were targets of the worst of it after their older, 19 year old sister, Jo, ran away to elope. Pammy’s older brother, Fred, escaped to college. No longer was Jo around to advise Pammy nor Fred to protect them. After many years of intermittent therapy and now married to me,  Pammy had only me. I did a poor job of being supportive but I did the best I knew. I was so busy attacking people, people in authority and even my own daughters sometimes. I thought I knew best for all of them. I failed to work on what was best for me.  I was insecure and tried to assert authority. I found myself behaving like my dad, your great grandfather. Often without enough knowledge and with very little wisdom,  I acted like I was the smartest guy in the room. In honesty, I often found myself acting like the people I liked the least. Trying to not be like my Dad, I became him. In detesting the way Pammy’s mom treated her, I did much the same. I would try to control Pammy instead of trusting her. I wish I had been strong enough to believe she would find her way out of the morass. I could have listened but that was not a skill my parents taught. When people in my life tried teaching me to listen I lashed out.

I owe most of what I eventually learned from the women in my life. Even though brash I think I had a hidden side of me that was sensitive. I wanted to shun it. I worked hard at dismissing it, drowning it in alcohol and drugs. I think there is a side of me, we can call it a nurturing, almost feminine side of me, that I balked at accepting.   I was like my Mom and to me that meant that I was weak. According to my Dad she needed help. If I was needy or showed weakness and vulnerability, how could I be all I needed to be for Pammy and my daughters? Most of my life I have hidden from the god of my childhood. When I was very young, maybe 5 or 6 years old, I spent my time in church shuddering about hell and this god’s judgment of me. Over and over I was taught hell, fire, brimstone and believed that I was headed there. So I hid. My siblings were in the same church pew but must have heard a different message. They believed. I could not believe it because I knew what was in store for me if I did. Now that I have grown older I still do not believe what they believe. Honestly, I spent years believing I was unworthy of love. That was my belief  and I think it was Pammy’s as well to some degree.  Let me be clear here. We were worthy of love and gave love to each other the best we were able. I am worthy of love and you two are both worthy of love. You are worthy of loving yourself and love from others. 

All you can do is your best.  It is not always easy but please slow down and listen. Listen to others.  It helps you listen to yourself. Believe in yourself and you attract people who believe in you. Live alone for a while.  It may save you for the best life possible. Did I mention dogs anywhere? Love them and other animals deeply because their eyes may be windows into the very best we humans have to offer. 

“It's not time to make a change
Just relax, take it easy
You're still young, that's your fault
There's so much you have to know
Find a girl, settle down
If you want you can marry
Look at me, I am old, but I'm happy”

Father and Son Youtube - Cat Stevens