Eight Memories of my Dad

Eight Memories of my Dad
By Hiatt Werling

1. In February of 2008, two and a half years before my dad died of cancer, we watched Super Bowl XLII together. Football was always important to my dad and I. My mom enjoyed it too, but to a lesser extent. She changed favorite teams every five or ten years to suit her changing taste in franchises, but my dad and I were anchored to our favorite teams. Him to the Cowboys, and me to the Steelers. We lived and died for our teams. I imagine it was always a small disappointment to my dad that I became a Steelers fan. Me shunning his favorite team must have been like a devout Christian father raising an atheist son. And because there was that divide between us, football was never quite as strong a bonding tool for us as it could have been. We both followed the sport with a fanatical fervor, but we always had different interests when it came to each game.

But not on the day of Super Bowl XLII. This Super Bowl was between the Patriots and the Giants, and the Patriots had won all eighteen of their regular and postseason games up until then, poised to become the first team since 1972 to go undefeated. The Patriots had won three Super Bowls at the beginning of the decade, and the sports community had all but unanimously agreed that if this Patriots team finished 19-0, they would be the greatest team of all time.

My dad and I hated the Patriots. There was no real reason for it, but there didn't need to be. A team other than either of ours was very successful, and we had both spent the season listening to the Patriots being called the greatest team of all time, and so we hated them. When you're a sports fan, that's all you need.

The Giants were huge underdogs, and our expectations were grim going into the game. But with the Patriots leading 14-10 in the game's closing minutes, we stood together on the brick floor of our living room and watched as Eli Manning threw a miracle pass that David Tyree caught against his helmet. Two plays later, the Giants scored a touchdown to take the lead with 35 seconds left. As soon as the touchdown pass was caught, my dad emphatically yelled, "YES!" and I clapped excitedly. We would always root for different teams, but that night we were united by our hatred of the Patriots, and I felt as close to him then as I ever had. Sometimes hate is as good as love.

2. I graduated high school in the summer of 2010. In late August, I prepared to leave Albuquerque and move to Prescott, Arizona to start college. Two days before my departure, my parents had a going-away get-together for me, inviting some of our family friends over for a little party. Before the party, I spent the afternoon hanging out with some of my high school friends one last time. I agreed to be home by 4:00, but I ended up not making it home until 4:20, and I didn't think to text my parents to tell them I'd be late.

When I got home, Dad confronted me immediately. He always got angry when I was late, no matter how small the margin was. He tore into me about my thoughtlessness and irresponsibility. It always pissed me off when he would make such a big deal out of something so minor. I came home twenty minutes late, and he was acting like I came home at three in the morning smelling of whiskey. But I know he didn't do it because he wanted to be angry with me. He did it because, whenever I was late, my mom got really worried. He wasn't reacting to me, he was reacting to her. And he really loved her, and he hated to see her worry.

When my dad was done reprimanding me and left the room, I looked for a way to release my frustration. I ended up kicking our stainless steel half-circle shaped trash can, leaving a sizable dent. That night, after the party, my dad noticed the dent. Knowing that it must have come from me, he questioned me about it. I played dumb and acted like I didn't know how it got there.

My dad shook his head. "Whatever," he said, "something to remember you by."

3. My dad loved coming-of-age movies, especially those from his adolescence during the late 70's and early 80's. Movies like Dazed and Confused, Say Anything, and most of the John Hughes library. One exception was Fast Times at Ridgemont High. He didn't much care for the movie, but he loved the book. During my junior year of high school, he gave me his paperback copy of the book to read. I enjoyed reading it, but I didn't quite relate to it. The book didn't seem like an accurate representation of high school as I knew it. Most of the characters in the book seemed confident and self-assured, but I was always very shy and self-deprecating in high school. It made me wonder if the book was what high school was like for my dad.

When he gave me the book, my dad told me that, when he was a teenager, he was similar to two of the characters in the book, and he asked me to guess which two. When I finished the book, I knew one of them for sure: Brad Hamilton, the responsible, charismatic guy who had a job. That's how I saw my dad. He told me I was right, but asked me to guess the second one. I had no idea.

Finally, he revealed that it was Mark Ratner, "The Rat", the timid and socially awkward one. I was very surprised. I had always known my dad to be charming, funny and confident, but he swore that he was much more shy in his teenage years, and that his charisma didn't come until adulthood. It gave me hope that, if he could grow into the man he was now, maybe I could find confidence someday.

4. When my grades began to slip during my junior year of high school, my dad began lecturing me on the importance of responsibility, telling me that I needed to grow up—after all, I was getting older, made no effort to get a job, had little resembling a social life, and spent the late night hours absorbed in the internet, watching silly videos and playing games and generally wasting my time.

During the following summer, I really pushed it, staying up until four or five in the morning and sleeping well into the afternoon. One night I was sitting in the living room yet again as my parents slept, wasting hour after hour on the family laptop.  It was past midnight when my dad emerged from his bedroom, walked into the living room and sat down across from me. He was wearing just his underwear.

He tried to explain to me that the reason he harped at me so much was because he wanted to see me succeed and have a good life. He looked like a man who was broken, who had given up fighting and instead wanted mercy. Normally his talks with me sounded like commands, but that night it was like he was pleading with me. I always hated the talks he gave me, because he always expected something from me when he was done. It's like he was asking me for a solution I didn't have to a problem I didn't know existed.

"I just want you to be happy," he concluded. "Do you get it?"

I really wished I had something to say. But all I could think to do was stare at him blankly and nod.

My dad shook his head and sighed. "You don't get it."

5.  One afternoon when my parents and I were visiting Disney World, we went to play mini-golf at Fantasia Gardens. I love miniature golf, love it with a passion. In the cartoons I watched growing up, mini-golf courses were always enchanting, with elaborate obstacles, decorations, and animatronics, but I was disappointed to find that most mini-golf courses in the real world didn't feature any obstacles more complex than "avoid the rectangle." But Fantasia Gardens was the kind of miniature golf course I fantasized about, with grand themes and designs and moving parts. My parents liked mini-golf too. They even went to a miniature golf course in Phoenix for their first anniversary.

During one hole, my mom and I stood next to our balls midway through the hole while my dad, at the other end of the green, prepared to putt. When he sank the putt, he gave an emphatic fist pump, like an actual golfer. My mom laughed and said quietly to me that she found it silly how enthused my dad got about something like mini-golf.

But I understood completely. I cared about mini-golf too. I knew it was just a frivolous pastime, but I liked the idea of taking something most people don't respect and treating it seriously and lovingly. My dad pumped his fist because he wanted to win. Not because he was overly competitive, but because wanting to win just makes the game that much more fun. My dad cared about the game, just like I did. And as I stood there and watched him in the Orlando humidity, I felt like his son.

6. In October of 2003, just after I had started my first year of middle school, my dad and I went to the movie theater on three consecutive Saturdays, just me and him. We saw Secondhand Lions, School of Rock, and Radio. My parents and I went to the theater a good handful of times during my youth, but it was always a once-in-a-while type of outing, usually happening no more than once every few months. That three-week block during the start of my sixth grade year was the only time I ever saw so many movies at the theater in such a brief amount of time. And my mom didn’t come with us on any of these Saturdays, it was just my dad and I all three times.

It was peculiar for us to see a movie three straight weeks, but I didn’t really give it any thought at the time. As a little kid, I didn’t ask too many questions about what was going on around me. I just accepted it as something that was happening, then accepted it as something that was over when we didn’t go back to the theater on that fourth Saturday. But looking back on it now, I think my dad did it to try to feel more connected to me. I was getting older, as was he, and he saw me growing up into a strange kid. A kid who was quiet, who didn’t show as much emotion as he should, who didn’t act the way my dad did when he was my age. I think he was afraid that we were growing apart, and he thought a weekly trip to the movies could be “our thing,” a way to make sure we spent time together and a way to better connect to one another.

But what I’m more concerned with now isn’t why it happened, but why it stopped after just three weeks. I’d like to think that my dad did feel closer to me after those three Saturdays, and he realized that he didn’t need to spend twenty dollars every weekend to connect with me, that we were fine just the way we were. That’s what I’d like to think. But what I actually think happened is this: my dad wanted me to let him in. He wanted me to open up and show him that we could connect. But I didn’t, and it only took him three weeks to realize that he should stop trying.

7. My dad’s condition deteriorated much faster than any of us expected, and I didn’t have a chance to talk to him before he died. When it became clear he was about to die, my mom bought me a plane ticket, but when I reached the shuttle service that was going to take me to the Phoenix airport, I called my mom and she told me my dad had died twenty minutes ago. Sometimes I can’t help but wish that I had said something to him before he died. I know there’s no perfect combination of words that would make me feel content with never being able to talk to him again, and to be honest, I have no idea what I would have said if I had had that opportunity. But thinking about it now, what comes to mind is the fact that my dad’s own father left when he was a baby, and he grew up without a father figure in his life. This means he had nothing to go on when it came to being a father himself, and he had to do his best to figure it out on his own. I know he always doubted his parenting skills. If I could have told him one thing on his deathbed, I would want to say that he did fine. Granted, he’d have no reason to believe me. When he died, I was an awkward, lazy, quiet, unmotivated teenager. I didn’t give him a reason not to think that he did a poor job raising me. But hopefully I could have convinced him that he did fine. That he was a good father. That I would turn out okay.

8. My dad was diagnosed with cancer in late September of 2010, a month after I had moved to college. He would die a month later. In early October I had a weeklong break from school, and so I drove to Albuquerque to see him. He looked small and emaciated, but he still looked like my dad. I spent the next few days driving him around, helping him run errands, as he was too tired to drive himself.
On Sunday I had to return to Prescott. It would have been advantageous to start the seven-hour drive early in the day, but I decided to wait until the afternoon to leave, so I could watch the Steelers game. I watched the game in the living room while my dad watched football in his bedroom. The previous year, his Cowboys had won their first playoff game since 1996, and they came into the 2010 season with high expectations. However, the Cowboys started 1-5, and their season quickly became a trainwreck. The one time my dad needed the distraction of football more than ever, and the Cowboys couldn't come through for him.

On the other side, the Steelers started the season an impressive 3-0, and that day they looked to improve to 4-0 in their most important game of the young season against their fiercest rival, the Baltimore Ravens. I watched the game very tensely, and when the Steelers took a 14-10 lead late in the game, it looked like they would win and I would drive back to Prescott happy. But with just seconds to go, the Ravens scored a touchdown and won 17-14. When time expired, I turned the TV off, deflated. That's the downside of being a sports fan. Your get your hopes up for sixty minutes only to get punched in the gut in the end, with barely a warning.

I went into my parents' bedroom to say goodbye to my dad. I didn't know it then, but that would be the last time I ever saw him.

"Hey Dad, I'm leaving," I said.

My dad could hear the dejection in my voice and looked at me knowingly.

"The Steelers lost?"

"Yeah."

That was all we needed to say.