In her memoir, H is for Hawk, Helen McDonald writes, “What the mind does after losing one’s father isn’t just to pick new fathers from the world, but pick new selves to love them with.”
I didn’t read the book. My mom clipped out the book review from the New York Times and gave it to me. She tried to get through the book, but it read too slowly. The review alone, and the quote in particular, had sufficed.
I read the review, I committed the quote to memory, and I wondered if this described my experience. Had I sought out new fathers? Had I loved the people that I had found, or had I been haphazardly filling empty spaces? Had I recreated myself in the process?
What happens to intimacy when you lose a father? Is it true—do we search for fathers …show more content…
My father, in the short twelve years I knew him, was strict. The last thing he said to me expressed his desire for me to be a well-behaved girl. Throughout my adolescence, I put enormous amounts of pressure on myself to study a lot, attend church and abstain from drinking and smoking. Thus, when I first dated in college, I experienced so much shame and guilt because I still felt like dating was on the list of "bad things." I am still working through this.
her: I kept thinking about [whether] something really good would follow to compensate…what does the universe have coming to make up for this? me: have you felt any compensation yet? her: I don’t know. I was so objectively lucky before it happened that maybe my dad dying was the compensation for the good that came before. me: do you really believe that the universe works that way, or is it just a kind of reflexive thought? her: I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about what treatment I deserve. After going through something traumatic or devastating you can feel really vulnerable or empty. So I guess I feel like I deserve something really great and gratifying but not something bad.
I didn’t read the book. My mom clipped out the book review from the New York Times and gave it to me. She tried to get through the book, but it read too slowly. The review alone, and the quote in particular, had sufficed.
I read the review, I committed the quote to memory, and I wondered if this described my experience. Had I sought out new fathers? Had I loved the people that I had found, or had I been haphazardly filling empty spaces? Had I recreated myself in the process?
What happens to intimacy when you lose a father? Is it true—do we search for fathers …show more content…
My father, in the short twelve years I knew him, was strict. The last thing he said to me expressed his desire for me to be a well-behaved girl. Throughout my adolescence, I put enormous amounts of pressure on myself to study a lot, attend church and abstain from drinking and smoking. Thus, when I first dated in college, I experienced so much shame and guilt because I still felt like dating was on the list of "bad things." I am still working through this.
her: I kept thinking about [whether] something really good would follow to compensate…what does the universe have coming to make up for this? me: have you felt any compensation yet? her: I don’t know. I was so objectively lucky before it happened that maybe my dad dying was the compensation for the good that came before. me: do you really believe that the universe works that way, or is it just a kind of reflexive thought? her: I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about what treatment I deserve. After going through something traumatic or devastating you can feel really vulnerable or empty. So I guess I feel like I deserve something really great and gratifying but not something bad.