To my father, RIP

“Haiku on Age 7”

                                                                                           By Jill Parshley ©1991
 

Sipping hot cocoa

Making angels in the snow

Daddy still alive

April 20th, 2013 marks 30 years he's been gone. It feels like it was just yesterday when he guided me from the back of my purple banana seat over my first hill. Sparkling pink and silver tassels twisted in the wind, hanging from my wide handle bars as I sped through Hoyt Park's gray concrete field, finally riding a two wheeler. The same field we made angels in the snow in together after shopping at Scaturro's supermarket under the “L” for cold cuts, pancake batter, frozen TV dinners with miniature cherry pies, and carrots for the pot roast Grandma would cook on the weekends. A quick stop at Neptune Diner for hot cocoa or a jog on the Triboro bridge; the usual Saturday...all of us doing chores together, while dancing around the house to 12 inch vinyl, how I loved the crackling noise. And my father holding the sleek black microphone would sing Barry Manilow or the golden oldies and I would dance on the tops of his toes, my mother and sister singing in the background while dusting the lampshades yellowed from cigarette smoke. The sun would shine through our 3rd floor apartment windows behind Crystal Gardens that overlooked the twin towers in the distance. Its rays shattered through the leaves of our ferns and philodendrons I told all my secrets to. My mom nurtured them so well. She's gone now too, but her plants live on my sill twirling to the music still, as my parents dance together in the so-called heaven to "Unchained Melody". I told mommy I wanted to marry him, and she gently explained to me the unimaginable news that he was already taken; I didn't quite understand, but I assumed the higher road at age 8 and let her have him. I won 3^rd place in the Sokol gymnastics on the vaulting horse at Bohemian Hall just before he passed of malignant melanoma, growing on his back like an endless tree trunk's roots digging towards his heart.  I have a photo of them proudly perched on both sides of me on our stoop as I adorn my medal. We basked in the sun often. In Vermont playing rummy on the dock of Lake Bomoseen, in the Catskills strumming guitar on top of Mountaindale, along the side of Astoria Pool, on our roof at "tar beach", in our communal backyard sitting in our blowup 2 ft. pool, and of course swimming waves in the Rockaways...coconut oil was the only protection known back then.  Little did we know the beautiful star comforting us through our panes while we danced, would be the same to burn him.  Sometimes, he'd let me drive our used forest green 1977 Lincoln while I sat on his lap, as he was on foot patrol, riding the brakes. Now, those were the days. I'd rather have had 9 ½ years of hugs from him alive, than never to have hugged him at all. Here’s to you dad. May you be resting in peace, after the dancing is over.
By Jill Parshley ©2013

 

To separate or not to separate?...That is the question.

I can't imagine what life would have been like if my parents split up as a child, but I can see by the bloodshot eyes of my childhood friends who had to choose between beds, weekends, photos, toys and memories due to such separations. My father died when I was 9, but my parents were together and very much in love. What is better, to have them die or choose to leave when they are alive? I've been asked that rhetorical question in the past. The yearning open grasp can hurt both the same. There's a saying, "The best thing a father can do for his child, is to love his child's mother". Concerns of abandonment, fear of intimacy and commitment, and doubt and mistrust are the waterfall of raindrops that sprinkle on broken families. So, this poem is dedicated to all of the parents out there, who each have different lunch boxes and sets of pajamas and play-dates and sleep-overs marked on their I-phones, but most of all have lonely nights missing the little tot who once crawled in between them under the sheets for protection from the boogie man.

I Will Mark Each Inch on the Wall

Jill Parshley ©2010

 

She’s the only one left in the “us”

Her wavy, honey locks of fluff wisp over her misty green eyes

As she rests her head on my thighs

Which are twice the size of her

She looks up at me, and I make silly faces,

like I’ve done in so many places

She giggles, “Daddy, do it again!” I can’t believe one day she’ll be ten

I don’t say this because she’s my little girl,

but she’s an angel, with a heart like a pearl

Onward and upward time will fly

But on my shoulders she’ll reach high

And I will wonder why

I was graced with this tiny miracle

How did I, one day at a time, change my life around,

and somehow undo her frown

Thank God as she grows tall,

I will be there to mark each inch on the wall

One day she will follow in my new foot steps for sure

Which no longer are stomping on the floor

And no longer running my sick soul out the door

I use to cry,

every slip was a lingering good-bye

I slept, didn’t play

I wept, far away

From the service I was meant to provide

But today, gratefully,

I live

And she forgives.

French toast with bacon on our weekend

Pray I never will stray again

We spend those days enriching our bond,

and then she goes back to her mom

“God…many nights they waited,

as I slowly faded, please-

keep me in your palm.”