My Father the Feminist

My father spent 20 years volunteering at the local battered women’s shelter, faithfully spending 20 hours per week there. He was the only man who had ever been allowed in the shelter. He made soup, read to children, changed beds. I have been told that for some women and children, he was the first non-violent man with whom they had ever spent time.  When he died, they invited me to a plaque dedication for him. The plaque hangs in the shelter today.

My mother and I used to joke that he was like a slave owner working for the abolition of slavery. He adopted feminism to an extreme. He had good friends from all walks of life at the shelter. He went to a lesbian wedding when he was 81 years old and rejoiced with them. He lectured me constantly about not referring to myself as a “girl”.  And he truly and honestly believed everything he espoused.

At his front door, it all stopped. It was as if he put on his feminist hat when he walked out the door and took it off when he returned. And he seemed completely oblivious to the dichotomy. He sabotaged every attempt my mother made to work outside the home, whether consciously or unconsciously. He was aggressively verbally abusive. When I divorced my first husband, I tried to explain that his best and my father’s worst were the same single point on a continuum. It was a text book case. He was deeply offended. He seemed to literally have no awareness of his behaviour and turned to my mother in complete confusion wondering how I could be so incredibly hurtful to him. Even as I write this I am entirely sure it was unconscious. He lacked emotional awareness because emotions were dangerous and to be repressed at all costs.

At my father’s funeral many women approached me in tears, expressing their grief. Again I heard how lucky I was to have such a man as a father. And I was without words. Because I loved him and I loathed him, and I grieved him and I resented him, and I was blessed to have him as my father and cursed to have him as my father. And I hated him for it even as my grief overwhelmed me.

 

A Secret Betrayed

I carried the secret of my father’s Judaism throughout my childhood. As I said before, it was always present, always in the background. It coloured our lives. Even my mother’s family did not know. We were involved in a conspiracy of silence so great and so terrible that it almost had a life of its own. Until the day when I betrayed my father and in one terrible moment spewed my anger and pain in a volcanic revelation.

My mother and I were at a family reunion when I was about 20 years old and there were many people there. My mother had 5 living brothers so reunions were not small. My father as usual had declined to attend. My mother’s family found him difficult at best. Part of the conflict was cultural, part was the absolute determination on the part of a few of my uncles to hate anyone whom my mother married, and part (the largest part) was my father’s ever present need to be as combative and provocative as possible.

We were sitting at a picnic table and someone made a joke about Jews and Easy-Bake ovens.  Even as I write this, my stomach clenches and the rage bubbles. Yet I am also aware that the joke was made in ignorance and without malice by a person who would never ever have intentionally hurt me.

I erupted. I said loudly and without thought “I will have you know that my great-grandmother died in a concentration camp!”  Three heartbeats of absolute silence ensued. Three heartbeats in which I realized that I had betrayed my father. Three heartbeats in which I realized that I had betrayed my entire family. It was cataclysmic. The earth shook beneath my feet.  I was up and running, heaving sobs coming from deep inside. The damage was done. Something terrible was going to happen.

My mother later told me that everyone was stunned, in particular the person to whom I had reacted. Even in their bewilderment, there were heartfelt apologies all around as well as words of acceptance and love. I was unable to hear those words both because I was too far away physically but also because of the turmoil inside.  The uncle with whom I was and today remain the closest followed me and encouraged me to come back to the house and to lie down for a while. As he quietly left the room, he said “You should be proud of who you are Karen.”

Not one person ever said another word to me about my revelation that day, but I am completely sure there was a great deal of discussion in its wake. My parents had been married for at least a quarter of a century by then, and this was, at the very least, unexpected.

When we arrived home, I tearfully confessed to my father that I had betrayed the secret.  I had broken the trust. I was devastated. He simply shrugged his shoulders and said “Bet that made a hell of a splash” and kept on reading his book. But I knew, I KNEW, that I had done something terrible. I had clearly set in motion some unknown chain of events, and placed us all at risk. I had exposed us and nothing would ever be the same.