December 29: I heard a robin a couple of days ago and like many other times, its’ song took me back to a memory I have of my Dad sitting with me in the bedroom of the first family home on Soudan Avenue. It was bedtime. The window was open a bit and someone was mowing a distant lawn with a gas mower. A robin was singing as the sun set. I was 4 years old and I remember to this day the feeling of peace and security of that night. I’ve been thinking a lot about Dad lately because he died 3 years ago today.
Sadly, when he died he was not the kind, generous, funny man I knew and loved. Alzheimer’s had turned him into a stranger. But this was not the first time he was a stranger to me. Dad was an alcoholic who drank heavily during the first two decades of my life. As a child, I had no understanding of alcohol and its effects, so it was confusing and upsetting that my Dad would disappear with a couple of drinks and a foolish, stumbling stranger would emerge. His behaviours during that period affected the person that I have become, and it’s convenient to blame him for some of my many faults and failures.
Lately though, I’ve come to understand him from a different perspective. As he tucked me in bed that night, he was less than 10 years removed from the navigator’s seat on a Halifax bomber. He had flown 33 missions and survived flack and a ditching in England. Once home, he went back to school, became a CA, got married, had 2 kids and bought that house on Soudan for $12,000. And he turned to booze for reasons we will never know. His disease affected his judgement, and he interacted with me in some ways that are still painful to recall. But he wasn’t acting maliciously or malevolently – he was always doing his best as he understood it in the moment.
Somewhere in my early 20’s he got sober. He went to AA meetings and quit cold turkey. I’m ashamed to say that I don’t know the exact date, because I was too self-absorbed to realize that a small miracle had happened, so every year in more than 30 years of sobriety, his (re)birthday would pass unnoticed.
What emerged was a warm, gregarious and supportive man. He was fundamentally a people person. He enjoyed his life. He loved golf and hacking around golf courses with him ultimately brought us closer. In October, I visited the Toronto Hunt Club where he had been a member. I sat in the parking lot for a while watching some groups straggle in off the course in the late afternoon sun. He would have been right at home with them, laughing and trading bullshit about the shots made or missed. That’s the guy I remember as my Dad – the same one who was tucking me in more than 60 years ago.
PS: Two days after I wrote this post, I went out the back door to discover at least 50 Robins perched in the trees over the garage and singing their hearts out. While I know that it’s fairly common for some Robins to overwinter here, I’ve never seen more than a handful at one time. It’s almost as if someone knew…..