Why We Never Talked About Dad

We never talked about Dad
Because Dad was hard to talk about

We never talked about the silence
Or the cigarettes
Or the one drink after dinner
Or the beers on the weekend
Or the television that was never, ever turned off
Or turned onto any program
Other than the one
Our Dad wanted to watch

We never talked about discipline
We knew there was no spanking
Never hitting, never slapping
Never a hand landing anywhere
Although, we didn't know that
Until we finally did talk about Dad

What we didn't know
Was that there was no violence
But instead, there was...

A sort of...

Absence

Break something?
Clean it up
Say a bad word?
Don't say it again
Develop a problem that can't be fixed in the context of a sentence?
Move out, move on, see you at Christmas

We never talked about Mom
Always working, always holding things up

We never talked about Grandma
Fussing over Dad, telling us how lucky we were to have him as a father

We never talked about Grandpa
Grabbing Dad by his hair, like he's a kid, when he has kids of his own
Asking him when he's going to get up and do something with himself

Then Grandpa looks over at us
And smiles
And says 'Oh, how big you're getting'

Maybe kindness skips a generation
Actually skips a generation
So that it's harder to be nice to your children
Than to your grandchildren
Because you don't know them as well

We never talked about Dad's shaking of the head
Or his licking of the lips
Or of the things he'd do rather than just say

'I'm mad at you'
or
'I love you'
or
'I'm glad you're my kid'

We never talked about the lack of affection
Or attention
Or anything, really

We never really talked
About anything

It didn't occur to us
Until much, much later

That there was so much
To talk about