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Last night, while I was busy having insomnia, I received an email from my father. We don't talk, much. In fact, most of my friends assume that my father is dead. He isn't, in fact. Just sometimes wishes he were . . .
He's 81, as he says it he "has a lot of missing parts" which includes a bladder, etc. His 2nd wife died some 5 or 6 months ago, and he set about putting his affairs in order - - - then he stayed healthy. Well, as healthy as he can be.
Anyway, he sent me this thing that I've seen a hundred times before where there's a paragraph containing words which have only the first and last letters in the correct places, and all the other letters present, but scrambled, and "Can you read this?"
Of course I can. But he asked for a response, and I responded.
We sent about 16 messages back and forth using email, not any chat program. He asked me about whether the gender of "problema" changes. It is, for those who are interested, always masculine: El problema or los problemas. We talked about languages that we spoke, what I thought of a couple of "teach yourself Spanish" free internet sites, and so on. We talked about playing and singing music. He talked about having to have something after his wife had died, and so started playing Country guitar again, after 15 years without doing it. We commiserated about arthritis in the fingers affecting our abilities to play well. He complimented me on my voice, saying that (from somewhere) he has a tape of me singing Mallotte's "The Lord's Prayer" and that he's never heard anyone sing it better. "Not even Jim Nabors."
I'm not fond of my father. He was extremely abusive of me, physically and emotionally, when I was young, and the emotional abuse continued into my early adulthood, until I basically broke off all ties. Darrell made me contact him, some 15 years ago, saying that if he died, and I hadn't been in touch, I'd lament it. So, from time to time, I respond to an email message.
We do NOT talk on the phone. I call my mom, from time to time, and we chat. I do not wish to chat with my father.
But when he told me that he remembered me singing "The Impossible Dream" at my high school graduation, and how he loved it, I was shocked. I didn't even remember singing that. But he did.
Maybe, despite all the pain and abuse, he actually loves me.
Do I have the courage to follow up on that thought? I'm not sure.