I have written 51 posts.
My Dad has been home for 3 weeks
Today was my younger niece's Birthday.
And Dad had a bowel movement this afternoon! (is that what being a parent feels like. You get excited when your children poop?)
I have sooo much to read and soo much to write for my class.
I thought about the Julia Child blog today... you know The Julie/Julia project. The author who spent a full year cooking Julia Child recipes and writing about it. She also had wide knowledge of Julia's life and would often write about that as well.
So I have decided to write a bit about my father's life.
My father never learned to read.
He has dislexia. He never described it but whenever he looks at a page with words he doesn't really see words... just a bunch of lines and curves. His Aunt was an English teacher and every day after school my father went directly to her house were she tutored him, to no avail...
The other children made fun of him. He hated school. He blended into the background and kept quiet.
At 16 he quit school and got a job working for a Rubber Company. He worked there for 35 years.
It sounds completely sad and maybe would have been... if he hadn't met Mr. Sayens. Mr Sayen's owned the rubber company where my dad worked. He instantly took a liking to my dad and told him to come over after work.
My dad loved to meet new people (he still loves it when people walk into a room... even me... 5 times a day when I walk back into the room... he smiles a big smile, raises his arm and says "Hey! where have you been!") so he visited Mr. Sayen's that evening.
It was the spring and Mr. Sayens had a beautiful estate. Mr. Sayens loved plants. He worked all day in at the shop and went home and worked until dark outside. He gave my dad some plants to put into the ground (my dad was a natural at this.) and was so impressed he told my dad to come back the next day.
My dad returned to Mr. Sign's house often. Together they would pull weeds, graph trees, transplant rhodedendrums, line flower beds, make paths... they turned that estate into a paradise. A magical paradise with hidden pathways opening on secret lawns. Little pools of water hidden in green glades... flowers of every kind popping out in unexpected places (I know all this because Mr. Sayens lived until I was about 7 years old... my dad would take me there and instantly, before the car even came to a complete stop, I'd jump out and race into the magic garden. I wouldn't come back for hours... it was a kingdom of dream...)
So every day they worked together... and when the sun went down and the light in the sky dimmed he and Mr. Sayens would sit on the grass together and watch the sun set and talk.... They talked about everything...
One day as they looked up at a pink and orange sky at the beginning of a summer evening Mr Sayens asked my father what he thought about Shakespeare.
My father became very embarrassed. He told Mr. Sayens that he couldn't read and didn't know anything about Shakespeare. Mr. Sayens told him to wait for a moment and went into the house. A few minutes later he returned with a book of Shakespeare's worked... he opened it... and in the remaining light he began to read to my father. Every day after that ... while the sun set ... Mr Sayens read and my father listened. My father cried when he told me this story... It didn't stop at Shakespeare either... there were a lot more authors he read... my father never told me but in my imaginings there was Dickens and Dickenson... Greek Myths...Gulliver's travels and Jonathon Carusoe...
Mr. Sayens died when he was 98. The last time my father saw him... Dad had driven to his house alone to help him with something. He couldn't find him anywhere... not in the house or on the grounds... finally my dad went to the spot (under a tree) where Mr. Sayens always read to him.
"Mr. Sayens?!" my father called out.
"I'm here!" came Mr. Sayens voice from up in the tree. A 98 year old man who had climbed a tree... fabulous. He died soon after. During their friendship Mr. S. had given my father a ton of trees and plants. they are still out there on our "estate" azaleas and daffodils in the thousands... holly trees and dogwoods(who glow eerily on warm spring nights under golden moons) sturdy canas who come like clockwork every spring and last until late fall and one strange and mysterious tree called a big leaf magnolia.. he blooms great white island looking flowers in spring and bears strange purple fruit every summer. Now the magic garden is here... the paths (although overgrown) and the secret hidden glade (also overgrown).
Many years after Mr. S's death my father left the Rubber factory. He took a new job as a landscaper. It's been his biggest passion in life to landscape. Where other people had books my dad had plants... his stories are all around the house... his words are leaves and bark... grass and leaves again.
That's a bit of my Dad's life... and Mr. Sayens
Ill write more tomorrow...
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