Focused on the Family, Vol. 1

So today is the day. Yeah, that day. The Tragic Trifecta. A dead dad, a fiancée taken away far too young and a major breakup, all sharing 25 September. It's a day that makes me think. And, this year, a day that makes me thank.

I have a story to share about my father, Joseph Bates. But first, I want to talk a bit about the other two things that make this day more than the average day. And how perspective has made them not all that traumatic after all.

My life has been broken into three distinct periods: the Philadelphia, South Carolina and Texas years, with a lovely side-trip to Southern California mixed in for good measure.

The transition from the Palmetto State to the Lone Star State was the result of the first woman I truly loved. The first, and to this date only, woman I ever proposed to. Her birthday was 25 September and I interpreted that as the penultimate "sign from God" -- He took away my dad on that date so He gave me something else back tied to that date. The plan went awry and wedded bliss was not meant to be. While we had parted ways long before her passing, the news that she had died of cancer hit me hard some ten years later, when I heard it.

But I look back on her now with fondness. For she taught me how to love, how to hurt. Until her I never knew love could be so painful. But I say that in a good way. Because the upside of that feeling is amazing -- and can never truly be appreciated until one has felt the polar opposite. And while ultimately we were destined live separate lives, I learned a lot from Regina Sifuentes. And it makes me smile to think that she has been relieved of her suffering and is living a life of eternal peace in heaven.

A few years after I found out about Regina's death, on yet another 25th of September, I broke up with a girlfriend I had been with for some time. When it happened, and for several years after, I was destroyed. These days I can't really say I am. I am in a happy, healthy relationship with a good woman.  There's a legitimate chance for a future together. I am happy. It's very easy to see now just how bad E and I were for each other. While I have not seen or heard from her for about ten years now, the last I heard she was married and also happy. I see that as a win-win.

Then there's Joe -- my dad.

I've shared in the link above (here it is again) the story of the day my dad died. I've shared some of my thoughts and memories of his life. One of those things is how he related to the kids of the neighborhood, particularly the older ones -- ones older than my brother, sister and me. The neighborhood, (hell society as a whole), was in flux. This was the mid-to-late 1970's when, in our working-class, Irish/German very Catholic neighborhood, a dad might drink excess, he may smack mom around a bit (my dad did neither), but he also, by and large, did two things: he went to work every day and he eventually came back home. Divorce just wasn't a part of life where I grew up.

But that was changing. So the first generation of these lost youths started to get into trouble. And eventually, inexplicably, ended up on the porch, watching a Phillies game with my dad. It wasn't every night. It wasn't even often enough to be called anything like frequent. But every once in a while I'd catch a snippet of conversation as I dragged my bike up the steps or out the door. "You need to give your mom a break. She's dealing with a lot..." "That's not the way you handle things..." "Gary, get me a beer."

I thought maybe my memory of this was a bit of revisionist history. That perhaps I had remembered one or two chance occurrences and somehow let it evolve into some sort of a part of my dad's presence that was never really there. Those doubts have been eliminated by a conversation I had just this week with someone I don't remember even knowing. His story amazed me. And made me realize just how great the man I am fortunate enough to call my dad really was.

I'm going to change some of the events and all of the names here, because of the nature of the story. But the essence is all accurate.

Facebook is an amazing tool. Over the last year, the seams between three phases of my life have been erased in a way I never thought possible. Where I always saw Philadelphia as the place I was born and grew up -- the place I had a dad, South Carolina as the place I finished high school and spiraled out of control after his death and Texas as where I have spent my adulthood, leaving each of the three phases completely behind, Facebook has brought it all together. I can talk to someone I graduated from high school with one minute, and the girl I kissed in an Alley off of Ashdale Street in Philly the next. As a result, I am more in touch with who I am and where I come from than I have ever been.

Earlier this week, "Walter" sent me a message on FB. He remembered me from when I was a little kid and remembered my dad. He is just one of several guys who have e-mailed me, specifically mentioning my father. But Walter was different. He told me about a night in the summer of 1978 that changed his life forever.

He was walking up Lawrence, toward Rockland when my father called out to him, "Hey Walter, c'mere." Now whether the game was between innings or Joe saw something in the kid's eyes or it was just fate, we'll never know. But whatever the reason, my dad stopped Walter, who made a weak attempt at moving along, then capitulated and took a seat on the top step, leaning against the column that divided the Quaid's side of the steps from ours.

Walter doesn’t remember how long he sat there or even what he talked about with my dad. He just remembers getting up to walk away and Joe saying, "Walter. You're a good kid." Walter went home that night to an empty house. His dad had taken off the previous fall; his mother was at work. He watched some television, sneaked a few beers and probably a j. He went to sleep. Just another night in the life of a teenager. Nothing miraculous happened, nothing really of note.

Walter ended up graduating from Olney High by the skin of his teeth. He bounced around Ju-Co and shit jobs for a while, met a girl, got her in trouble and straightened out. He went to school and became an Emergency Medical Technician. He has three kids now and has been married for over twenty years. He has a good life.

On that summer night in 1978, he had planned on ending that life. He was young, stupid, messed up and confused. He couldn’t see a way out and was going to take his own life. Then a man took a few minutes to talk to him. To listen to him. To tell him he was a good kid. And that was enough to keep him going another day.

My dad was that man and because of him, Walter kept the faith. There were other mentors along Walter's path, other people and things that kept him moving forward. The birth of his first child, more than anything, focused him on the Big Picture and got him on track. So Joe's impact cannot be made to be the only reason he is alive to this day. But it's one.

As an EMT, Walter has undoubtedly saved lives. He is a good man who tries to leave the world a better place than he finds it. Like anyone else, sometimes he succeeds, sometimes he fails. But he continues to fight the good fight.

Walter never had the chance to thank my father for what he did that night, so many years ago. Joe had moved to South Carolina in August of 1984 and died of cancer thirteen months later. Other than his wife, Walter had never told anyone the story about that night in 1978. Until he happened across me on Facebook. When he told me the story, he thought he was thanking me by proxy for the actions of a man I can only hope to measure up to one day. But in reality it is me who is thankful.

For while every kid thinks his dad is a great man, Walter allows me to know that mine really was.

And I look forward to telling him that, when we are reunited on the Other Side.