(no subject)
Jun. 6th, 2004 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mamadebMy father was a unique individual. I've inherited his curly hair, some of the green of his eyes, a large percentage of his face and his stubborness. I also inherited his love of science fiction - the only one of his four children to do so.
He and my mother raised four difficult children - an autistic son, a genius son, an only daughter seven years younger who never worked to ability and a youngest son who never quite rebelled but never quite did as his father wanted. And there was never really enough money but we never felt that - he followed Heinlein's injunctions to budget the luxuries first, inasmuch as they had a budget.
His main job - and he would have said this - was to support a family. He went back to school at the age of thirty with a wife and two children so he could become an accountant. He found he enjoyed it, even if his own home finances were something else. He went into debt for houses he couldn't afford, but he kept us housed and he sent three of us through college, and he saw two of us married and one of us gave him a grandson.
Yesterday I read a book called Red Thunder by John Varley. It's classic science fiction in the best sense of the word and he would have loved it.
We had a lot of tension in his last years as I became more religious and because I never had the success he never had but wanted for his children, but we always had that bond between us.
He would have been 72 years old today.
Miss you, Daddy.
He and my mother raised four difficult children - an autistic son, a genius son, an only daughter seven years younger who never worked to ability and a youngest son who never quite rebelled but never quite did as his father wanted. And there was never really enough money but we never felt that - he followed Heinlein's injunctions to budget the luxuries first, inasmuch as they had a budget.
His main job - and he would have said this - was to support a family. He went back to school at the age of thirty with a wife and two children so he could become an accountant. He found he enjoyed it, even if his own home finances were something else. He went into debt for houses he couldn't afford, but he kept us housed and he sent three of us through college, and he saw two of us married and one of us gave him a grandson.
Yesterday I read a book called Red Thunder by John Varley. It's classic science fiction in the best sense of the word and he would have loved it.
We had a lot of tension in his last years as I became more religious and because I never had the success he never had but wanted for his children, but we always had that bond between us.
He would have been 72 years old today.
Miss you, Daddy.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-06 05:44 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-07 08:33 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-06 06:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-07 08:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-06 08:45 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-07 08:35 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-06 10:00 pm (UTC)For me, sharing books -- of whatever genre, neither of us was a purist -- was something I did with my mom. Hardly a day goes by that something doesn't happen that I wish I could share with her.
Watching sports, especially baseball, or how-to shows is what connects me to my memories of my dad.
Mom died eighteen years ago, and Dad nine. I miss them both every day.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-07 09:35 am (UTC)And he'd have been thrilled if I'd published an sf story even if it earned me nothing.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-06 10:33 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-07 09:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-06 11:31 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-07 09:38 am (UTC)Two autistic daughters? Kol kavod.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-07 05:59 am (UTC)I grok very closely with you in this; my late mom's birthday is next weekend.
We never stop missing them.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-06-07 09:39 am (UTC)