With Father’s Day coming up in a week, I thought I’d ruminate on fathers; my father in particular. Fathers are a curious thing.

Some are kind and loving, some are cruel and uncaring. Whether present or absent, they are an integral part of who we become. When I was growing up I never knew what to call my father. I lived the first few years of my life with my mother and her parents while my father was away at sea, stationed on a supply ship in the Navy.

Because I lived with my grandparents, who had children not much older than me, I grew up calling my grandmother Ma, and my grandfather Dad. When my own “dad” became part of my life, I couldn’t call him Dad, since that was already taken, and “daddy” didn’t sound right. Mostly I didn’t call him anything.

In my early religious youth we were told God loves us as a father. I could never reconcile that with my own experience of father. My father was a difficult man to live with. I never knew how he would react to something. One time he would laugh, and another time he would blow up and be angry about the same thing. He was volatile to say the least. “I love you” was not in his vocabulary.

He had a soft side, particularly when it came to animals. My grandmother, “Ma,” had given me a parakeet as a birthday present when I was very young. I really didn’t have much use for the bird, but my father would take it out of its cage and carry it around on his shoulder, where the bird would nibble his ear lobe and make little bird noises in his ear.

One year, as we were driving along the backroads of Sherman and Clymer where he grew up, he spotted a snapping turtle in the middle of the road. He didn’t want anyone to come along and run it over, so he pulled off the shoulder, got a shovel out of the back of the truck, scooped it up and placed it in the weeds on the other side of the road. Polliwogs were another creature he introduced me to. I can’t remember where it was, some non-descript gravel pit, where puddles of standing water were filled with polliwogs. He showed them to me, commenting that someday, if they were lucky, they would become frogs.

Times were tough when I was a kid, but I didn’t know it. Hand-me-down clothes and government cheese was a way of life. My father would often complain about a rocking chair my mother bought for me for Christmas. It was gen-u-ine red vinyl that looked like leather, complete with metal rivets and wooden arm rests. It cost $25 — a veritable fortune in 1955. I still have it, although the vinyl is torn and the horsehair stuffing is coming out. I wouldn’t dare ever throw it away. It was an expensive bone of contention for most of their married lives.

By the time I became a teenager, the friction in the household was approaching unbearable. I used to pray for God to let him die. I look back now, and I am ashamed of myself for thinking such a thing, but in my own teenage drama, my life was the worst. As I would assume most teenagers do, I hated my father. I was totally oblivious to the home lives of my classmates, some of whom truly lived daily abuse.

My father prided himself on never swearing, but he routinely took the Lord’s name in vain. His speech was sprinkled with hells and damns and various permutations of the deities. He considered this cussin’. The really filthy language, swearing, never crossed his lips; at least not in front of his children. Toward the end of his life we had an altercation that should have happened 50 years sooner. I told him I would pick him up from his house between 5:30 and 5:45 p.m. When I arrived at 5:40 he immediately lit into me about being late. When I tried to point out to him that I was, in fact, not late, he got even angrier and the invectives flew hot and heavy. Now, normally, I am a very patient, understanding person. But that day, for whatever reason, I was in no mood to be sworn at, particularly by my father, and I snapped. So I began yelling back at him, sprinkling my tirade with liberal amounts of “cussing.” I had never raised my voice to my father. I never swore in front of either of my parents. This was totally out of character for me. My father stopped what he was saying, looked at me and said, “G’on home.”

The next morning I dutifully went back to his house, sat down at the kitchen table and said we needed to talk. He said, “I think we said enough. A lady don’t talk like that.” I proceeded to ask him then why was it OK for him to speak to a lady like that? I didn’t appreciate being sworn at and treated in that way. You know, he never swore at me again.

My father and I grew close after my mother passed away. They had been married for 62 years. He confided things to me that he could never say to her. He asked me to explain health terms the doctors used that he didn’t understand. He shared intimate details of his bodily functions; things no daughter should have to know about her father; but I had become his mother, his nurse, his confidante. I was there when he passed away. He’s been gone for three and a half years now and I miss him.

Long ago he pointed out the lower right star in the constellation Orion, and said that’s where he’d be when he was gone. So I look to Rigel and wish upon a star. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. I love you.

Robyn Near is a Ripley resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com