My father is 78. He is an old man. His life was already half lived before I was born. I always listen closely when he speaks about his life--the life he experienced before me. I absorb each story and weave it into my own history creating a connection from shared memory. A tapestry of a family that exists within me and extends outwards to the past and the future. I use his memories to know myself although like adding breath to the wind the questions I have resonating within me are released with no echoing return.
I had never met his father. My grandfather was taken away when my own father was only five years old. His mother began the journey of single mom at that point. I think of her and make parallels to my own present situation. Any perceived trials I endure pale in comparison. She had four boys. She worked hard and brought them through the war alive and self-sufficient. Who could ask for more?
My father was the second youngest. His younger brother was less than a year old when their father was taken. He has no memories of him. I have always wondered about the connection my father has with his younger brother -- my uncle Topi. I know that my father has always felt protective over him. They both left Finland together in 1959 to settle in Canada. They both worked together in the same lumber mill. My father had not received any education past public school. He and his older brothers needed to work in order to provide for the family. Topi was the one who received the education. When he and my father arrived in Canada, my father became a worker in the mill. Topi became a foreman. I have heard Topi tease my father with an air of superiority and I have watched as my father has taken it. I wonder, at times, who my father would have been had he received a formal education? Would I have been different?
Lately, my father is keen to tell me more stories. I know that my time with him is nearing an end. I call when I can. I listen. I know that that is what he wants more than anything right now. He wants to be heard. He wants to be understood. He wants to live on. Don't we all?
The last time we spoke he told me a story I had never heard before. When he was six years old, his mother had to leave her boys at home in order to go to work. She left a list of chores for her sons to do. Each task had to be completed before any free time could be had. My father asked, rhetorically, if he had ever had the chance to be a child? They swept the floors, did dishes, sawed wood for the stove, made dinner and looked after Topi. How did his mother feel when she left their one roomed home each morning?
I heard a change in my father's voice. I heard a six year old boy. One afternoon he watched as Topi was playing in a sand pit. Topi was too small to get out so was relatively safe. My father saw his older brother run off to the creek? river? lake? I cannot remember how my father described it. The important part was that the boys went swimming. It was hot. My father felt that if the older ones could go swimming so could he. He left Topi in the sand pit. When the boys got back they saw that Topi was covered in blisters from the sun. They quickly brought him inside and when their mother returned home she gave them all royal hell for not looking after him. For almost getting him killed. How much of her anger stemmed from guilt?
My father's voice pleaded to me from out of the past. 'But I was only six!'
My uncle's scars from this incident remain. As do my own father's.
It was about twenty years ago when my father was reading a magazine article that suggested a link between childhood sunburns and skin cancer. My father was always reading. Always wanting to learn more. My father, still protective over his younger brother, watched for signs as they sat together in the sauna. One day, my father noticed that one of the blister scars on Topi's back was discoloured. He had to fight with his brother to get him to see a doctor. He told him that he bore responsibility for it but would be damned if he let his brother not get it checked out. It was skin cancer. The spot was removed. The cancer had not taken root.
My father blamed himself while simultaneously trying to forgive himself. 'I was only six!' Old man and child facing a memory together. A timeless confrontation.
My father then went on to tell me about the cancerous mole he had had removed from his own neck ten years ago. He mentioned it as a matter of course. Shit happens and he dealt with it. The irony escaped him. I realize at times like this that I have more of my father in me then I would be likely to admit.
