My Father: A Coda Marked Lentamente, ma non tropo

My Father: A Coda Marked Lentamente, ma non tropo

At this stage in my life (age 76) new ideas occur to me with powerful magnetic force and attach themselves in a novel and delightful way to thoughts I have carried with me for a long time. Seeing the past through this lens illuminates shadows. It represents a living, breathing example of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

Many of these thoughts were stimulated and accelerated by reading Jim Axelrod’s NYT review of a book by John Darton called “Almost a Family.”

Both the review and the book act as a roadmap helping me look at my childhood in a compelling manner.

The thesis is straightforward and has to do with my father being snatched away from me at a young age.

Antithisis. In order to fill the gap due to the absence of my father’s physical presence, I created a mythological scenario based upon the legend of Sir Galahad which, at the end of my quest, would bring me home again to my father's presence. As the reviewer states, “As coping devices go, mythmaking is a bit more sophisticated than vodka or pills, if less conscious. Especially when a son is trying to make sense of his father's fingerprints on his soul. These represent the process of examining elaborately constructed defenses erected to cushion the boy growing up without a father.”

Synthesis. As the reviewer continues to say, “This is a book about working out the author's relationship with his father. Not the man, of course, but the concept. The author writes, “Not having a father present doesn't mean not having a father. There wasn't just an absence in my life. There was the presence of an absence.”

The reviewer continues “Mr. Darton’s life is the product of collateral damage. Tragedy was out of his control. But finding stability, if not well-being, in its aftermath was not. It was a matter of staring clear eyed at the wreckage.”