Collage Series 2: Earthly Remains

Collage 2.4: Earthly Remains, copyright 2020 Linda Farrelly

My dad again, as a child, and myself as a child. He seems such a mystery to me, yet in some ways I knew him intimately. I knew him when I was a child, but once I was a self-sufficient adult he was long gone. I often wonder how my life might have been different if he was around more when I was a teenager and young adult. I wish he could have met my kids, and I wish my kids could have seen the mischievous glint in his eye, experienced his warmth and wit.

Not that he didn't have his issues. He and my mom had some fights that were worthy of the silver screen. The family he grew up in basically disintegrated at some point, leaving him and a couple of his sisters to be raised by the nuns in an orphanage (long story). The bitterness he felt towards his own father never lessened, never left him.

 But I knew he loved me, appreciated me for who I was. I feel like he and I shared the same basic temperament, quiet mostly, drawn towards physical labor and tasks involved in making things. Drawing. Writing. Taking pictures. Building things. Bad puns and sarcasm.

Mom- What do you want for breakfast?

Me- Make me oatmeal!

Dad- Poof! You're oatmeal!