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

not mastered—and searches out the stock prices that he regularly tracks. Despite having no sight in one eye and very little in the other, he is able to identify the tiny abbreviations more successfully than any of his guests. I retire to a side chair by his bed and try to read or just sit quietly.

Ironically, my brother, who has long benefited from my father’s investment advice and whose stocks my father was following but no m y fat h e r ’ s k e e p e r n 113

longer trading, has little patience for this apparent indifference. Irritated, he tells me that he will quickly terminate his visit if my father continues to read. In contrast, I understand that my father is free to fill the time of my stay, never more than an hour, in whatever way he chooses. I make no claims on his attention. I am lending him my life for this brief bit of the week. Experience also teaches me that if I wait him out—five, ten, or twenty minutes, depending on the day—he will eventually look up and engage in a short conversation, with his voice when it still remained or with pad and paper when it was completely gone. Then, just as suddenly, he will return to the newspaper or drift off and I will continue to sit silently. I am satisfied simply to be in his presence and to appreciate his continuing interest in something other than his own health, which he is preoccupied with for most of his waking hours. I do not expect chatter or meaningful exchanges but am confident that all our time together matters deeply to both of us and happy for him to do with it as he wishes.

There are other days when, seriously depressed or raging with anger, my father says little or nothing. Then the silence is filled with a different set of emotions. The sullen withdrawal bespeaks despair.

The silent rage is wielded like a sword to stab anyone he sees as responsible for his imprisonment within a body and institutions that he cannot control. Trying to break through such silence is often a thankless task, so mostly I choose to quietly observe. I am saddened by what I see yet hopeful that my father might eventually be made more comfortable. Working with children and caring for people with HIV/

AIDS makes clear that at times all we can do is bear witness to another’s life. I can only offer my presence and now these pages as testimony to what occurs in those rooms.

I know that silence makes many people uncomfortable. Enmeshed in a culture that values verbal communication, it is often difficult for us to imagine different ways of being with and relating to others.

Some of my graduate students are upset by a forty-five-minute video-tape of a woman bathing her sister’s baby in an Ivory Coast village.

During this highly ritualized, twice-a-day practice, no words are spo-114 n jonathan g. silin

ken, nor are there any of the verbalizations deemed by our culture to be a “normal” part of infant-adult interactions. Instead we see rigor-ous physical caring in a hot, dusty, and severe environment. Similarly, viewing a film of a preschool in Japan, where teacher-student contacts are formal and spare, raises questions for my students about the role of adults in promoting language development. In Japan, instruction is delivered to relatively large groups of young children, and there is little opportunity for expressive language. Traditional culture rewards adults who are able to intuit the needs of others rather than articulate their own feelings. Teachers see intelligence reflected in a child’s ability to fit into the group. Problematic children are those who stand out for any reason, who make their individual voices heard. The homo-geneous societies of Japan and Africa place an ultimate value on membership in the collective, on empathy and action. In contrast, our heterogeneous society values the isolated individual, separation from others, and talk.

How do we come to read silence? How do we learn to remain still?

My brother’s own daughter describes one way this may happen. She and I are on one of those long Thanksgiving Day walks that can only occur if others are cooking and we are allowed to prepare for the indulgences to follow. Since my brother has lived most of his adult life in the Far East and I have really only known my niece through brief summer visits, she properly assumes that I am not in possession of the details of her family history.

I don’t remember exactly what we talk about on the brief stretch of road leading down to the ocean. But I do recall that as we step onto the wintry beach, Anne, bundled against the cold Atlantic winds of late November, tells me how her parents first met.

“And how did you meet Bob?” she finally asks me. As I share this part of my own history, we laugh at the similarities. Like her parents, we were introduced by a mutual friend at a party. Similarly, we were too preoccupied with other people and projects to be immediately interested in one another.

On leaving the beach, our conversation takes an unexpected turn.

m y fat h e r ’ s k e e p e r n 115

“You know when I realized you were gay, Uncle Jonathan?” Anne asks. I am unnerved, my stomach is unsettled even as my intellect is sparked. In truth, I’m not sure I want to know, but am unwilling to reject an offering that is so gently and hopefully proffered.

Ironically, Anne’s knowing comes through a denial. It is an ordinary dinner table conversation that reveals an exceptional fact. Anne is nine or ten and has no memory of the prior topic but is clear about the moment when her mother turned to her father, saying, “Don’t you think it’s time we tell Anne about Jonathan?” My brother’s response is crisp and declarative, paternal and paternalistic: