Crying out for...

One time, he dropped a big bag of frozen fish on my head. It wasn’t intentional, I was playing on the floor by the fridge, and he was rummaging around in the freezer for the fish. He caught the stacked wall of frozen packages before it cascaded out of the cold dark space and buried me, but one big pink, icy chunk of walleye landed on my head. I was probably around 5, maybe younger, because my dad and I still hung out all the time at that point. No school yet. The fish scared me, but didn’t really hurt. It just sort of interrupted my play. But it hurt him.
“Oh,sweetheart! Are you ok? I’m sorry, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for that to fall out and hit you. Oh, are you ok?”
Sweetheart. This must be serious. Rare for dad to express affection like this, I thought, but with the use of “sweetheart,” I knew he was really moved. He kneeled down and tried to scoop me into his arms, but I was ok, no harm done. And then, as he succeeded in wrapping his strong, tanned arms around me, I lost it. Not because of the pain, but because he had called me “sweetheart.”
“BWaaa….” I’m fine… uwwaa…” I sniffled, letting go of the tears that I didn’t even know were there. This, of course, made him feel even worse.
“Oh Marcella, what can I do?”
It’s been a while since I thought about this incident, this minor memory, but I DO think of it every time I’m at home and digging in the same freezer for frozen fish. The stacked walls of fish, corn, hand-shucked peas makes me think of it. The packages still come sliding out of place, still require a steady hand to extract just one, or an extended arm to keep the whole thing in place. I’m no better at getting just one package out than dad had been twenty years ago. And I’m no better at keeping it together when he offers me something or calls me sweetheart. Especially now, miles from home and playing at being a grownup.
I'd found a moderate level of success here in Chicago, working as communications director for an independent media start-up. But it didn't sing in my heart as I had hoped, so I quit the job in October to focus on writing the book that has been three years (ok, a lifetime) in the making. I tell people it’s a medical comi-tragedy because sometimes I feel uncomfortable saying that it’s a book about me. People look at me, like, “oh, what makes your life so interesting that you think I’d want to read it?” I know that’s what they’re thinking, because a couple of them have said it.
Or, ok with talking about the book, I feel bad for whomever is with me that knows I’m writing the book, because if it’s an old friend, he or she has heard the story of my stroke and recovery a zillion times and knows all about the book and isn’t really all that impressed anymore. Ha, in fact, he or she is probably tired of my self-assured narcissism. Yes, I’m serious. I think I’m great and am sure that it gets old for my friends to have to hear me talk about that to others. An only child, I've been hearing how great I am for the past 25 years. It's now ingrained.
But I digress.
So. I quit my job, knew that the savings I’d been stashing away would carry me through the new year, no problem. And they did. And then I went to Thailand. Still no problem, I pulled the money for the flight out of my savings account and planned on getting by cheaply in a country still friendly with the U.S. dollar. Which was still no problem at first. Halfway through the trip, I’d only spent about $350 when my wallet, passport and other items were lost and dad had to wire me money. A lot of money, as it turns out, was required to get a new passport, immigration stamp and two (yes, 2!) rebooked flights to secure my release from Thailand. But I made it home, much to my parents’ delight.
I, on the otherhand, wasn't sure if I was delighted or defeated or even alive, anymore. I was returning to Chicago, but to what? To whom?
“I missed you,” said dad when we talked on the phone for the first time. “That was all very spooky to me, that stuff. I’m just happy you’re home.”
I had thanked him for bailing me out, as he always has, as he always does. And then today on the phone, I updated him on the progress and success of the job hunt that I’ve been doggedly pursuing since my return last week. I called my mom yesterday, cried, got hung up on, so he called me first thing this morning to make sure I was ok. He still misses me, still wants me to come home.
“You could work for Morie,” he says, when we move past the weather and health and fishing. “His receptionist quit. Call him.”
Morie is my dad’s financial planner. I have a life insurance policy with him too. Last time we talked, it was a heated discussion about why I was going to Thailand and needed some money out of that policy.
“You have no idea what it’s like to almost die at 22, Morie. I’m going to Thailand while I’m young, while I’m able to. I’ll let my money sit in your account if you don’t want to help me. Fine.”
“No, dad… I’ll keep looking here.”
We went on to talk the family, his ex-wife’s continued hassles over my recently dead half-brother; dad’s concerns over whether or not he’s been a good father.
“Dad, you’re a great father. You love us all, you help us all. You do what you can. She’s just bitter and angry and there’s no changing the venom inside of her.”
And then we went back to me.
“Marcella, I want to make sure you have something to keep your mind busy. I’m not going to be around too much longer, and when I’m gone, then there will be nothing. So what the hell. I want you to be happy. I know you’re not doing what you thought you’d be doing by now. If you want to go back to school, I’ll help you…I just.. want you to be happy. I don’t care if you work or not. You know I’ll help you as long as I’m around. But I think if you were doing something, you’d at least feel a little more settled.”
And that’s the heart of the matter. Like the fish on my head, like the conversations we had after I got out of the hospital and spent countless days on the couch opposite my dad’s faded, blue recliner: He feels sorry for me, helpless to remedy the undeserved pain that sometimes comes my way. I’m not the hotshot journalist that we all thought I would be by now, because I don’t trust my broken memory. I’m not even working, f’chrissake, because the stupid seizures that came with the stress of my last job are never going to be as easy to walk away from as that job. And he doesn’t care if I’m even working, is willing to do whatever he can to help his baby and make her life ok, but he can’t even figure out that that is. And neither can she.
And that’s what hurts. Not the unemployment (next step in the book process is editing and rewriting but I want to find a job first), not the stroke stuff anymore, not really. What hurts is that dad wants to help, and can’t. Wants me to come home, but I can't. I have to figure out what I want, here. It’s up to me. Yet in feeling his sorrow and effort to help, I feel more sad and pathetic than I did before. Just like the fish that didn’t hurt and the crocodile tears that flavored it.