Fascination
Posted on 2005-08-05
He is rather good-looking. He isn't a tall man, but I suppose I always thought of him as tall because he was taller than my mother. I wonder what drew him to her??? And, of course, he was always taller than me.
It's an old photograph that belongs to another, but a copy was made for me at my request. There is also one online, in a family geneaology website. And I seem to have a fascination with him as a young man in that particular photograph. It's a group photo, taken with other relatives and family members at what appears to be a family celebration. Everyone is smiling, including him. And I wonder if it was before he knew my mother, or had they both met by then???
He looks happy in that photograph. Outgoing, even. But I could be wrong. I used to think so, but upon further reflection, he once said - on a rare visit when I was a teenager - that I was just like him. I realised his job called for him to be outgoing and assertive. But that was a job; it wasn't who he was. That was who he had to be in order to get the job done. But maybe, in time, he grew into that role??? I wonder sometimes if that ever happens, or if that was who he was all along.
He looks happy. He's smiling. He has a nice smile. And I wonder what sort of man he was, what experiences he had that helped shape and mould him. I know that he was once a prison officer. I wonder what that experience was like, what he had to put up with in order to survive among kidnappers, thieves and murderers. And how he changed when he came home each evening. My mother told me he had nightmares. Were they caused by something that happened at the prison, or were they caused by something else???
He looks like a nice young man, attractive, kind, warm-hearted, someone a young woman would be proud to take home to meet her family. And my mother fell in love with him. And he with her. I wonder what sort of courtship it was, how he won her over???
I like that photograph. I like looking at him in that photograph, almost fascinated with the person that he was - although I never knew him really - or what he seemed to convey through that photograph. I could be wrong, all wrong. But maybe I'm not.
He seemed like a nice man, because he was a nice man back then. And I don't know what made him change and do the things that he did, what he did to me.
He has a nice smile. I said that already, didn't I??? But he does have a nice smile. He seems at ease, comfortable with the people around him. And I wonder if his smile is hiding anything, concealing some darkness within that no one else knows about. I can be so dramatic.
People who know him say that I look like my father. And I always liked that. I actually feel rather proud of that. It seemed important to me that I looked like him, for after all, according to everyone we knew, I was my father's daughter. Even the bad experiences couldn't take that away from me.
Over the years, I've seen just a handful of photographs of him. The camera likes him, that is obvious. And people like him. I liked him too until his actions pushed me away. Love and hate seemed to go together for a long time after that. Whatever the emotions really are, these are the words I use to describe them.
In the nineteen nineties, I wrote, "There are sill times when I wish my dad were here. I sometimes wonder what he is really like, what I missed out on during my childhood and my teenage years. I asked mum about him the other day, and she told me that he once said that he didn't mind if I didn't marry, because one couldn't really trust the men out there. When I heard that, I wondered if he was referring to himself as well as the men who ended up in his prison."
I like looking at that man in the photograph, because not only is he an attractive individual, someone you think that you would like, but he is also the man who became my father. And I wish I knew who he really is, what his thought process is, what his conversations are like with the people around him. I know little bits and pieces, but they're not enough. And no matter how long I stare at the photograph, trying to figure him out, trying to find out where he fits in with those standing around him, I know those questions will probably never be answered.
But still the fascination never leaves me. It is as if I am trying to piece together this intricate puzzle, but some pieces are missing. He took them with him when he left, and I don't think I can ever get them back.
If I were in contact with him, would it be different??? But I'm not. He left too soon. As a teenager I once said that him not being around released me, and I suppose in a way it did. But now it seems that I am held captive by something else. It is the memory of someone that I thought I knew, but never really did. But how could I, when his actions later created a great divide between us???
So I look at the photograph every now and then. And I smile inside. There he is. That's my father. Before everything else ever happened.