In his baby blue tuxedo, my father receives the crown upon his head during his senior prom. The same night his mother Alice dies of cancer at the age of 49. After the festivities my father’s football coach told him the devastating news. My mother knew the whole Chandler family from living across the street at the time. She remembers my father sitting, keeping to himself and not saying a word to anyone after the visitation. Usually he was the most out going person in the family and had a smile that could melt your heart. This death would not be the only one that took a toll on my father’s emotions.
A song that always reminds me of my father is I’m Going Home by Hootie and the Blowfish. The lyrics make me think of not just the deaths that have happened throughout his life, but also him coming home. It is like him coming to me to help me understand, to try to be close with him.
Mama please don't go, Won't you stay here for one more day, I've been your boy for so long now, There's so much I still have to say,Sky rips open, and I hold my heart in my hand, Like a soldier on his very last day, Cried myself to sleep that night, and I listened, As I heard the angels sing, sha la la la, i'm going home
While sitting on a rock that has been eroding away in The Little Miami River for many years, my mind wanders through hundreds of memories from the past and dreams that I wish will come true in the future. I am sitting on this rock because I have come to this eroding memory since I was a little girl running around in the dirt with pigtails flopping up and down. I can close my eyes and let the sun hit my face with the warmth of rays pointing upon me. I can remember so many summers and springs that I have laid upon this rock. As the shining sun hits me, all of a sudden the light is blocked. Blocked by what? I quickly open my eyes to find my father standing in front of me. He smiles at me and quickly stumbles through the rocks. I am sure he is smiling with his bright green eyes, heading back to the land. He knew I would be down here because he is the one that introduced me to this river, The Little Miami River and the rock I lay upon.
The Little Miami River runs along what use to be called The Miami Purchase. John Cleves Symmes a congressman from New Jersey wanted one million acres of land from congress to start building in the Northwest Territory. The Little Miami River runs through Milford where my father and I have grown up all our lives. It also passes the American Legion Post 450 where my father and I have been many times throughout our lives. The Little Miami River and The American Legion have brought memories back to me that were between my father and I, that I am now realizing the effect they had on my father. (Miami Purchase)
My father’s oldest sister Linda explained to me how the other boys in the Chandler family were all involved with the American Legion Post 450 in Milford, Ohio. The American Legion is a war-time veteran’s organization that was chartered by Congress in 1919. (The American Legion) She thinks that since they were so involved it helped them get over the losses that happened to their family, but also to take pride in their country. My father was the only son in the Chandler family that never was in the service. The Chandlers are all about the legion. My uncle Donny spends every waking moment at the Legion, even Christmas Day. It is where I have grown up. I remember seeing a picture of me (2 years old) and my cousin Mark (9 years old) during an Easter egg hunt at the Legion the only one that I would be aloud to participate in. My mother didn't find it suitable for me to be down there, but my father since the legion was a place to escape, to be able to sneak down there sometimes, he wanted me to be a part of the tradition, “heading down to the legion,” as he called it.
Every first weekend in June there is a festival at The Legion. It has been a tradition to walk down there from our house just me and my dad on Saturday night. We speak very few words during the 5 minute walk. We pass all the old shops and the white lights intertwined in the trees make the cool night seem magical. This is one of my favorite traditions with my father. Once we arrive at the festival with the smell of feces lingering around the booths and drunks staggering everywhere even though its only 9 pm we laugh and know this will be an interesting night. Since my dad is a Chandler and the Chandlers are well known in Milford, or in this case the Legion we get free drinks and food all night. Friends and relatives come up to us, me and my father side by side and chat forever. This moment is in silence for me because I realize I love being a Chandler. I love my father for being who he is at all times. We hear Chandler and we both look back and recognize another member of the Chandler family. This repeats the entire night until my father and I start heading back home and laugh the whole way.
During every summer I always run down to the Legion from my house because of the small town everything is so close. I would have always found my grandpa smoking a cigarette in the basement when he knows he shouldn't be, or the bartender saying, “Hey Chandler,” to me while kicking some drunk out at noon. I have many memories at the Milford Legion with my Chandler cousins (some should not be mentioned). My mother still doesn't know half the stuff I enjoy doing with the Chandlers. It’s all because of my father. Whatever I did with the Chandler's, was usually kept from my mother for years. The legion and the river are my father’s safe havens to get away from the evils of the world. He can be himself, sitting with a big grin on his face, green eyes reflecting the light off of the river holding a Bud Light in his right hand.
My father, not very wealthy growing up in the small town of Milford, is from a big family of 8. As children they would all sleep in the same room which was the attic of their house. When all the children were home together, they said it was like 8 wild animals roaming up the steps and out to their backyard. No wonder they turned out the way they did. All of my father’s siblings still reside in good old Milford. Some of the siblings have good lives with children, having a job and able to stay a float in this economy. Others haven’t had a real paying job and can barely get by with paying bills and their children suffer from their actions. My father was the only child to graduate from college. With so many kids and family members around I ask myself why my father is so quiet his family is huge they were always busy and chatty. Is it because when he was growing up with his brothers and sisters he would put all of his belongings, the few he had, in a little corner of the room so they wouldn’t get mixed up with the others. Maybe it’s because each child is so much different than the other; my father is not very close with any of his siblings. The only time the Chandlers get together is for holidays, running into each other at Skyline on the usual Friday night, or at Kroger’s. After living with my father for my whole life and now regretting the many times I said I never wanted to be a Chandler, I have realized how wrong I was. Since leaving Milford and my family to go to college, I really miss being around Milford. I realized if it wasn’t for my father I wouldn’t be who I am today. I have his athletic ability. I am very quiet at times. The latest is having a boyfriend, and he calling me out because I don’t share what I am feeling; I am my father’s daughter. I want to be a Chandler and will always be one to everyone I meet. It has only taking me forever to bring that fact from the bottom of the river to the surface of my life. I want him to know that I want to be close with him; I want us to be able to have a father-daughter dance with the voice of Eric Clapton spreading the joy through singing “Wonderful Tonight” at my wedding. Even though we are blood related and he was the one that held the bottle to my lips as a baby, helped me read, and helped me learn to ride free in the wind on a bike, I feel he is still on the other side of the river and the water is too high for me to cross and reach him. He is the one that I look up to, even though I barely speak to him while I’m at college. He seemed so far away to me, but he has been standing right next to me my whole life with the answers.
After talking to my mother and my father’s sisters, they seemed to think the earliest my father started being so kept to himself and never showing emotion was when his brother, Tommy died at a very young age to testicular cancer. My father was very close to Tommy, the only brother that he usually hung out with because they were so much alike even though Tommy was much older than my father. Tommy was stationed in Hawaii for the service, and his family would never see him again until he was shipped back to Ohio. My father says, “I felt numb after the funeral. It was shocking I hadn’t seen my brother in 2 years and here he comes in a box with stars and stripes hanging over his dead body.” Since his brother’s death, I believe that my father visits The American Legion because of Tommy.
I love my father very much; I am not writing this in hatred to him, I just wish he would show some affection to me or my mother. I can count on one hand how many times he has embraced me with his muscular used to be football arms. Every time I look at him he has this face that I can never and probably will never find what he his thinking about. I am never the one to pry open someone’s heart to know what they are feeling. I can’t say too much because lately I am becoming that lock to my feelings that are growing bigger each day and I have swallowed the key.
My father was never very good at speaking what he felt to anyone. Another moment in my life where my father could have told me differently was when my grandfather was in the last stage of his life. It was about a week before Christmas and I just got home from work complaining about how bad my feet hurt and the juveniles there. If I only knew what news I was about to receive. I took a glance at my father and even with the lights off I could tell he had been crying. I went upstairs got dressed in some comfy clothes and ran downstairs. Mother yelled dinner’s ready and my father didn’t move and his eyes were frozen on the TV. Something was definitely wrong. I got my plate of spaghetti and butter and sat back down on the couch.My father was sitting on the other couch closer to the TV. My father still staring at the TV, very bland explains to me that grandpa won’t make it to Christmas.I was shocked he just blurted it out like nothing was serious. That’s the way he dealt with death. Straight and to the point is the way he knew how to deal with the pain. I couldn’t breath and finally my mother came in took my plate as I ran out of the living room. It took me a couple of minutes to calm down and finally got my plate and sat by myself at the kitchen table. My mother and father were in the other room. I was so angry he told me about my grandfather like that. I was pissed. As I am about to break down again I see someone coming into the kitchen in the corner of my eye and turn to find my father in tears coming to give me a hug that I have never felt before. It was a rare moment in our household when my father would embrace they way he did, both of us crying. It is as if he squeezed the anger from me and put his heart and soul so close to me, but I still couldn’t grasp them. At that moment I understood that my father holds everything inside and sometimes it’s going to burst just like he held me in the kitchen with the annoying buzz of the light on the ceiling flowing through our ears.
I feel close to my father, but at times I feel like we are canoeing in the Little Miami River, but he keeps floating farther and farther away. My parents are always there for me, but I am closer to my father either way. I have lived my life the way he has. My father is a man that spreads a smile whenever he speaks. He's a man with little words and emotion. He is always packing a cooler to float in a canoe to have a good time to be himself. He's the man that I look up to even though when we say goodbyes he gives me an awkward handshake instead of an awkward hug with a pat on the back.
My father came to visit me for a weekend in Athens. My father Patrick is the type of guy that takes everyday at a time. The way a 52 year old gym teacher should be living life. I always question what he is thinking; I can never read him right. As an only child, not emotionally close with my parents I was actually very excited he was coming to OU, to visit me, his follower. While he came to visit on Saturday we went to dinner with my friends and then went to (I don't know if I'm allowed to say this) a bar and had drinks that helped me have a great morning after. At the end of the night when my father was leaving to go to his hotel room and after having an awkward night of standing next to each other with a distance of looking right then left and commenting on the drunks falling over in front of us until he left with complete intoxication and giving me a handshake and slipping a $20 dollar bill in my hand. It was at that moment that struck me as annoying. I stood there with my hand still out with the feel of paper on the palm of my hand shocked by knowing that this is his way of saying goodbye. It struck a nerve to the very core of my feelings towards my parents. Then as he leaves my friends Anna and Caylee give me this look of surprise because they both explain he gave them each a $20 dollar bill. Was I just his friend, or a girl he knows? I wanted to spend time with him, not for him to give me possessions that I don't want when I have time with him. It's a want to be close with him, a closeness that I want more than anything especially worth more than to have Andrew Jackson explain his feelings.
This memory that was a big step with my father and I getting closer and that will be close to my heart was when my grandfather (my fathers, father) passed away in January. This is the greatest and strongest memory I have of my father and his emotions. It was a crazy night at my Aunt Linda’s house. It was the house that the Chandlers grew up in. All the children and grandchildren were spread throughout the one story house eating, sharing memories, or drinking heavily to get rid of the pain. My father took the role upon himself to make sure everyone had a drink. My father was beginning to drink more once he found out how sick my grandfather was. It was no surprise. I arrived late to my aunt’s house, but once I was there I was put to work on making collages for the visitation, with my older cousin Matt. Since Matt is skinny like a toothpick he was already drunk and not very much help with the work we had in front of us. I just sat there laughing not realizing my father was a bit buzzed and laughing at everything Matt was trying to do and trying to say. I hadn’t seen my dad laugh in a long time; it was nice to see. Well later that night after my dad influenced me to have a couple drinks, he informed me we had to write the eulogy. At this point, Matt is falling asleep about to fall out of the chair next to me, my father’s baseball hat is backwards and I, who has a good buzz has post it notes all over my shirt from other relatives with ideas for the eulogy. Getting started was difficult, but my father was next to me smiling at me with his green eyes and whispered to me, “thank you for being my daughter and I love you.” I knew he was proud to say it, but it took him 19 years and alcohol to finally say it to my face. He didn’t give me a hug, but a pat on the back and we continued on scribbling a rough draft of the eulogy that my father would read at his father’s funeral two days later.
I have figured I have fallen asleep on the “sunshine rock” as my dad calls it. It is lighter than it was before, but easily to look around without the sun shining down. Once my eyes have focused I see that the river has finally lowered. I look around and notice I am able to cross the river with ease. I see someone wide shouldered and taller than me approach the shore as I make my way out of the rocks. It is my father and I take his hand, because we are going home.
Miami Purchase. 5 March 2009. Miami Purchase-Ohio History Central-A Product of the Ohio Historic. 2009
The American Legion. 5 March 2009. American Legion Victor Stier Post 450, Milford, Ohio. 2008-2009
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