My Father's Keeper: The Story of a Gay Son and His Aging Parents by Jonathan Silin (free novels .txt) 📗

a middle course between the Scylla of supporting goals that can only lead to disappointment and the Charybdis of blocking the ambitious drive that has served him so well. Whatever the outcome, we are able to talk and share stories, summon old memories, and even create some new ones. If for no other reason than that, a year after his hospitalization for severe dehydration, both of us are enjoying an improved psychic reality, the best it has been in a long, long time.

5

Reading, Writing, and

the Wrath of My Father

I want to suggest that anthropologists, and other vulnerable observers, can and should write about loss. But we must do so with a different awareness, an awareness of how excruciating are the paradoxes of attachment and displacement. Above all, I think we need to be absolutely pitiless with ourselves.

ru t h b e h a r , The Vulnerable Observer My personal and professional lives have a serendipitous way of running along parallel tracks. Ever since my father was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx, I have had to think about the possibility that he would lose the ability to speak. How would he communicate?

What would happen to his love of language? At the same time, as codirector of research for a large urban school-reform project, I am confronted with the overwhelming focus on reading and writing in contemporary classrooms. Observing teachers and students in a hard-pressed, low-performing district, I am painfully aware that a pernicious insistence on measurable standards, high-stakes tests, and accountability has filtered down to even the youngest children and 67

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their teachers. In these early childhood classrooms, every activity must contribute directly and visibly to teaching academic skills. The morning message, once written by teacher to students at the start of the day as a vehicle for encouraging discussion of past experiences or upcoming events, is now a formulaic exercise designed to teach letter and word recognition. When children are invited to bring in a favorite stuffed animal, the activity is rationalized with a measuring assignment during work time. The kindergartners must determine the tallest and shortest creatures brought from home. While reading sto-rybooks, teachers emphasize the names of authors and illustrators, ask children to draw inferences from pictures, and direct attention to techniques of character and plot development. Seldom is a text left unanalyzed and rarely are the author’s words allowed to wash over the children, the meaning and structure seeping into their pores without articulation. There is little time for cooking and block building, for trips into the neighborhood and visits from people who do interesting work. In these, as in so many classrooms around the country, literacy takes precedence over life.

Although phonics, spelling, and punctuation are drilled daily, in some classrooms the legacy of the whole language movement is evident in the labels affixed to cabinets, shelves, educational materials, even chairs and tables. I can’t help but wonder what the five- and six-year-olds make of the signs mandated by the district to appear over classroom work areas, such as “This is the dramatic play area. We are doctors and nurses. We have fun.” Or of the mobiles filled with poems that float too far above the children’s heads for them to read, or the

“word walls” crammed with too many words for a nonreader to sort through. Although children are required to write in journals and to share their efforts with the class, group discussions that reflect the world outside the classroom are few and far between. As long as they write it really doesn’t matter what they say. And for all the talk about multiple drafts, editing, and the writing process, there is an underlying emphasis on the product that will be read to the class, placed on the wall, and ultimately brought home to family.

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When in 1999 my father’s cancer returned and he lost the remaining part of his larynx that had been salvaged in the initial surgery, I was prompted to reflect on the power and limitations of language in an even more immediate way. Too debilitated or simply too stubborn to master the electrolarynx, an appliance that allows many to communicate despite the lack of vocal cords, my father remains wedded to the written word. Steadfastly refusing a simple instruction such as “milk” or “sweater,” he turns every request into a paragraph-long treatise on his current health status or the climate conditions in his room. He takes obvious satisfaction in his carefully crafted sentences, which range in mood from playful and humorous to angry and demanding. When he finally hands me the yellow legal pad on which he scrawls his communications, his expression is one of pride and watchfulness. Will I laugh at the right place, grasp his double enten-dre, or appreciate his concerns? Although I often wish for the more rapid, more “natural” dialogue possible with the electrolarynx, I can’t help but be awed by his command of pen and paper. Despite his numerous disabilities, he is still able to generate ideas, exercise control, and make his desires known in his own unique voice. My father teaches me about the compensatory pleasures of the text.

I only have to look back to my parents’ inaugural use of the telephone answering machine to find a precursor to the precise, carefully calculated style that my father would adopt in his written communications. It took my then eighty-something parents several years to master the art of leaving a message. Unlike my friends who have honed their telephonic skills on outgoing messages—adding and deleting musical serenades as well as chipper and Zen-like encourage-ments for the day ahead—my parents focused their attention on the messages they left on others’ answering machines. Over time they turned it into a distinct and nuanced vehicle of communication.

At first, there was only the clicking sound of their hanging up that announced the call. Our recorded message