For All He Could Not Be

When I entered the room, my father glanced up and then maneuvered his wheelchair to face the window. I sighed and settled into a chair. Seventy miles I drove to be with him. Sometimes I was welcome, most often not. I never knew. These uncomfortable visits to his nursing home continued a lifetime of awkward attempts to connect . . . our endless dance to find some way to be a father and daughter instead of blood-related strangers.

For years I knew that my father’s inability to express caring and his long, stony silences came from his own unhappiness. But his emotional absence and indifference were no less profound or painful. Books could explain his behavior. The war, my brother’s death, even his sacrificing his passion for music to practice law and support a family—I could explain those. But nothing erased a daughter’s longing for a father’s love. No miracle, no Hollywood ending would come. It was always painful, it was still painful; presumably, it would end painfully.

My fervent prayer for a better close seemed small against the wave of my father’s continuing rejections. Nonetheless I prayed for help and was prompted to look at my own heart closely, to examine my powerful expectations. I was not at the nursing home to love my father. I was there in hopes that he would finally change and love me. Clearly I had to stop coming to receive. Nothing would change until I chose only to be a loving daughter. Whether my dad could return my love or express his own was irrelevant. I had to forgive him for all he could not be.

Now my hour-long drives to see him opened time for me to pray and imagine. I consciously pictured my car as a vehicle for healing. I would bring love to a wounded relationship. I would bring love instead of further injury. In this relationship, my only control was in who I chose to be. I chose to break the cycle of hurt. Then one particular night, driving back to my condominium after my father had once again received me with stony silence, I saw it. I saw two human souls receiving repeated opportunities to choose love. Tears welled up. My wellbeing was not a product of my father’s behavior, but my own. That night, the endless search for my father’s love ended, and the journey to become love began.