The Eighth and Ninth Wonders of the World

As a child, I thought of my father as the Eighth and Ninth Wonders of the World.

At his best, my father was the Colossus at Rhodes, larger than life. He was a big Irishman: handsome, flirty, charismatic, quick witted, clever and totally irresistible to everyone who ever met or knew him. To the world, he was a man’s man, a women’s dream, and the father all my friends wanted to have. I loved him more than anyone.

My father was also Mt. Vesuvius, a verbally eruptive force of nature. He was the most terrifying and hurtful person I knew. He could have you laughing uproariously one minute and, with a flip of his tongue, put a dagger through your heart the next. The scary part was that it was completely unpredictable which Wonder he would be and for how long. It was like living in the shadow of an active volcano, knowing that it was going to blow but never knowing when. And when it did, the lava it spewed was hot, swift, and inescapable. I hated him. And I loved him more than anyone.

I realize now that my father was as unfulfilled as my mother. He was a man caught in the times, a young man who loved the arts, reading, and the world. A gifted athlete from a very poor family with a football scholarship to University that was derailed when WWII broke out. He married my mother during the war and came home to the beautiful but isolated New England island of his youth to climb telephone poles for a living.

Neither of my parents had the privilege of thinking about their inner lives. They were busy trying to put food on the table like most of their friends. And while my mother was living the life she did not want in silent desperation, my father was living the life he did not want by railing against the world. The funny thing is, after my father retired, he quite happily became the voracious reader, the innovative chef, and the creative home tender that my mother never wanted to be.

I had a mother who wanted to live her life as a "man", and a father who wanted to live as a "woman," but they let their lives be firmly imprisoned by their time and their gender. And although I chose not to grow up feminine, I did grow up female in my family. I think that was a blessing.