My Father's Birthday

ENJOY THE RIDE

July 17 is my father's birthday.  He died in  1970  and was only 58 years old.  I was not in the US when he died, my son Joe and I had been experiencing our first trip and stay in Ireland at the support and suggestion of Yashdip.  He met me in Dublin and introduced me to friends there and then showed me the Garden flat he had secured for us in Rathmines. The next day he flew back to London to pursue  his research in the British Library and I was to pursue my Yeats research at the National Library in Dublin. By the end of the summer I had decided that Yeats was not for me since my emphasis was on his plays and I found that I did not much like them. Another Irish playwright  had come to my attention --George Bernard Shaw.I had found my dissertation subject.

So thinking the summer a great experience, I landed In Boston and returned to Providence to hear the sad news that my father had died the night before.
I  went to see my mother the same day and I went out to shop with Anna and find a black dress.
The next day was the funeral and my Aunt Grace was grief stricken because she had not known her brother  was in the hospital. Her other  brother Irving knew and had obeyed Norman's  desire to have Irving come in the next day and shave him and make him look better. Irving could tell Grace after that so she would not be so shocked  by his appearance --or he so ashamed.This was so typical of my father who was always very particular about his looks.

 Irving complied, but Norman died the next day of congestive heart failure. Grace was in shock. She felt she had been excluded form Norman's lat moments. She invited my mother and Aunt Anna to the funeral, and forbade his recent wife, the notorious one. She had  married him in the wake of his acquiring a small inheritance from his father, Oscar's property, marrying him and then divorcing him when all was spent--the space of a year or two.  Grace could not forgive that, and she had always  supported my mother's position and  refusal as a Catholic  to divorce.

So the funeral was fraught with tension that I did not fully understand .  It climaxed  when the ex-wife appeared  pacing and ranting on the  hill behind  the Jenckes impressive  burial plot at Oak Hill, Cemetery in Woonsocket, a place that Grace revered and took me often as a child to decorate the graves of her father Oscar and grandfather Ferdinand.

On this day I wish that  I could go and decorate his grave.  Instead I want to recall some of the good  advice he gave me and ignore  some of his questionable gambling habits --some wins and many losses.But I must admit that using his system  of picking winners,  while watching the races at Saratoga--they still work more often than not.  I won't share those particulars here - but I will share the general living advice that I used in a  poem or two or three.

Ghazal Enjoy the Ride

Watch out for the curve, steep hill ahead, enjoy the ride.

It's all stop and go and “look ma, no hands” enjoy the ride.

All the warnings get in the way, better to feel the fun of the new.

Take a road you don't know, turn strange corners don't destroy the ride.

Every thing now is a trade off, I get to keep my husband at home .

That means that I check everything he does that seems to annoy the ride.

I have hopes of leaving here and moving to a warmer Southern place.

Snow and ice are hazards: slips, slides, falls wreck my old joy: the ride.

So different when I was in grad school, I ran from class to my bike.

Then pedaled through snow and ice; thrilled with Illinois-- the ride.

As a child I loved the freedom that bike gave me, a gift from my father.

Birthday bike and a note “Always keep moving” time to deploy the ride.

From that day on I wandered for miles and no one knew where I was.

I cherished my travels, I would come and go; nothing could cloy the ride.

I raced all the boys in the neighborhood and I won. Sweet victory.

Coast downhill to the river: no hands, feet on handle bars. Can't alloy the ride.

I sought no companions for the bike rides, My odyssey was my own.

I dared any to match me. Pride at an all time high, the real McCoy -- the ride.

You know, Norma, that no ride can last forever, Even you were due for a fall.

Now you are housebound but still restless. In your dreams you employ the ride.

One Friday night after visiting my Aunt Grace, my father drove us home too fast.

Bounced over tracks, laughed at me mumbling Aves, “Sit back; enjoy the ride.”