Karl Hungus: Remembering my Father Through Film

If Karl approves it, this was my comment:

"I lost my father in 2003, two months after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. It ripped a huge hole in my life that has never completely closed. And it was only in the last two years or so that I was able to watch the films we'd watched together and enjoy them: A Hard Day's Night, Stalag 17, Fail Safe, The Bridge Over the River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago, episodes of The Avengers, Secret Agent, Space: 1999, Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows: Resurrection and The Prisoner. Another favourite of his was classic Battlestar Galactica (from which he named me Athena -- but was ultimately overruled).

He worked swing shifts for Anheuser-Busch and he'd often keep late hours to unwind and watch his movies. Often he'd be awake, eating from a plate of pizza rolls, watching them and I'd be passed out next to him on the couch, unable to stay awake at 3 am to watch Alec Guiness or Patrick McGoohan. I finally saw Doctor Zhivago on television in my college dorm room, a full two years after he passed. It was every bit deserving of his praise."

Somewhere in the boxes in my storage unit, there are 16 individual T-120 VHS tapes labeled "The Prisoner." They belonged to my father, who was a huge fan of the show. Somewhere else in the unit is a paperback copy of "The Prisoner Companion." Also his. I've never given either much examination. I will someday. In the meantime, I'm very sad to hear about Patrick McGoohan. But then again, dear Daddy now has yet another person to meet in whatever ether/universal waiting room we all may or may not go to (along with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and Johnny Cash).

I'm breathing fire here, guys, so I'll keep the rest of this entry brief:

New job. (nothing has been quite so satisfying as telling Borders "I quit.")

New job I can put on my *journalist/activist/queer chick resume* and not my customer service one (Field Manager-In-Training for the Fund for the Public Interest).

Invited two friends to go and see "Milk" on Tuesday. Neither even bothered to call or text message me back. *shrugs* I've probably earned some of that, since I didn't get back to Caroline before New Year's about ice-skating. But, then again, she had her fiance with her. And Rene. Eww.

Had a date two weeks ago (with a man) and have another one this coming Saturday (with a woman).

Canvassing in freezing weather is infinitely more rewarding than making coffee for mall rats/playing "queen of the playground" with an ill-tempered alcoholic. It may be the most rewarding thing I've done since writing the Arkansas articles for Vital Voice.

Have been watching more Classic Who -- Patrick Troughton this time. Have fallen a little in love with Frazer Hines (boy in a kilt -- who wouldn't? And he clearly enjoys touching the doctor. A lot.).

Bought a new fun hat for canvassing. It kind of looks like Jayne's hat from Firefly, but pink and purple. Goes well with the red hair, German army coat and the cock necklace.

It's been an eventful four days.

My sister, Erica, planned a trip to St. Louis for this week months ago; to attend a dance with her boyfriend and to visit with me, Grandpa, our godmother, and everyone else she could fit into her relatively short schedule (April 9 - 13). Grandpa was going to pick her up from the airport on Thursday; her plane was scheduled to arrive at 2:30.

Thursday morning, approx. 11 o'clock, Grandpa's cellphone rang: it was our mother. Angry, in tears, and more than a little accusatory. Erica had left her a note -- she hadn't read it yet. Her youngest daughter had just called her from the airport five minutes before and told her where to find it in the house, and that she was "very, very sorry."

That's how we all found out my sister was coming back to St. Louis for good.

For those who don't know, ( I'll recap: )
For the rest, here's the short version: My sister -- who so many people *in her own family* unjustly regard as feeble or somehow overly vulnerable because of her medical diagnosis..

1) Paid for her plane ticket home with money she worked for at her job.

2) Arranged a transfer from her job up there down here (she starts work on Tuesday).

3) Researched the legality of her guardianship and discovered that there was "no law stating that a person under guardianship had to *live* with their guardian" in either Missouri or Pennsylvania.

4) Managed to keep her plans a secret from *everyone* even after packing a HUGE suitcase full of clothes, shoes, books and dvds that the airport weighed at 75 lb.

RENE: "Your sister's my *hero*."

Mine too.

She's going to be living with our grandmother in Fenton, three miles away on Highway 141. When Grandma takes some of her longer trips, she's going to be staying with us.

Karen is more or less resigned to it. Erica's assured her that it wasn't her or Steve's fault. She's found living with Adam harder to deal with other the years. He's 20 years old now and some of his symptoms -- rocking, biting his hand, pinching when he's frustrated -- either haven't abated or go away for a while and then come back with a vengeance. She showed me some recent scars on her hand where he'd broken the skin with his fingernails.

For years, Erica's been the only authority Adam would respond to. If my own memory of the years I lived with Karen serve me, my guess is she's left a lot of the minor "parenting" duties up to Erica -- getting him up in the morning, getting his breakfast ready, getting him into his uniform and off to school, fixing dinner for both of them when Karen and Steve went out, telling him to clean his room, fix his shelves, turn down his music, etc. I don't doubt she's tired of it, especially if Adam's still continuing some of these behaviors.

The girl deserves a life of her own, and she didn't wait for *anyone* to tell her she did so before she seized her chance to get out. I am so proud to be related to this girl. She's the bravest girl I know and I am so glad she's home where she wants to be.

I've told a few people that whenever a Beatles song comes on the radio at what seems like an opportune moment, that's my dad saying hello or trying to offer me some advice/encouragement, etc. Most of the time, I just *hope* that's true.

Then there are times when the coincidence is just too much, and I believe it..

Yesterday, five Beatles songs came on when I was in the car. Tonight, when I came home, KIHT played two tracks back to back: "Helter Skelter" from the White Album, and "End of the Line" by the Traveling Wilburies (George Harrison, Jeff Lynne, Bob Dylan, Roy Orbison and Tom Petty).

Dad put the latter song on a few of our home movies that he used to edit and make copies of for our family and friends. It's a fun tune, I like it pretty well, but I was just pulling into the parking lot at my complex when these lyrics came on:

You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring
Maybe a diamond ring

Well it's all right, even if they say you're wrong
Well it's all right, sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it's all right, As long as you got somewhere to lay
Well it's all right, everyday is just one day

..and I say that with a great deal of self-awareness. After Bill's call last night, I sat down and had a nice little rant about how much the world was cursing me and wanting to spit in the face of every happy person I encountered.

I flashed back to Dad and his tantrums and it was over almost immediately. I don't *think* I have clinical depression -- in fact, my dad was the one who always insisted I didn't -- but I watch that pretty closely anyway. It's a family disease, after all. And am I *not* a clinical depressive because I'm able to control my more drastic mood swings? The psychologist I saw my senior year of high school told me I didn't have an eating disorder because I stopped purging after I was caught by a co-worker. But that little interim only lasted three years, so.. what's the answer?

I'm happy for the moment because the roads are clear, my morning class was cancelled, Missy, Tom and Caroline *are* all coming in tonight, I've got until Monday to finish all the corrections my adviser and panel members gave me for my thesis and I've just downloaded "Band on the Run" from a Beatles file-sharing community.

So, being happy, there's very little to manage emotionally at the moment. I'll deal with everything else as it comes.

Some days are better than others. Most of the time I feel like I'm far enough away from what happened to me and my family when my father died, I can talk about who he was, share memories of him with other people, talk about what kind of father he was, his wonderful sense of humor and catalytic anger. The rest of the time, the hurt follows me everywhere.

I was scheduled to work all day on Father's Day, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. at McDonald's. Caroline, Melissa and I were the only ones working. Everyone else either had a father to visit or -- in the cases of Ricky, Monta, and Eric -- had their own father's day to enjoy with their children. I worked the grill line all day with no break, making greasy hamburgers and deep fried chicken for legions of thankless customers, some of whom were families celebrating Father's Day by making dear old dad take them to the mall. I hated it and I made sure everyone who crossed paths with me knew it.

But before that, I went and visited my father.

Dad has a brick in the path around the penny fountain at St. Anthony's hospice. Grandpa bought one for him and my grandmother after they both passed on from terminal cancer, a little over a year apart. St. Anthony's treated them both. My grandma spent her last three days in a room at the hospice. My father never made it out of the eighth floor cancer ward.

By some weird arrangement, their bricks are on opposite sides of the fountain. Dad's reads "Good Son and Father." I brought a card for him and chatted with him silently for a while. I stopped to chat with Rozlyn, one of the nurses who was out having a smoke break. Rozlyn lost her father in September and her husband back in 1995, and talked to me about how she'd chosen "To Dance with my Father" by Luther Vandross to be played at his funeral, because the last time she'd seen him -- at his birthday party the night before he died -- she'd danced with him.

I started to cry and she gave me a hug before I left to go to make artery-clogging hamburgers for people who clearly don't know what they have in their lives. Or their children's lives.

In As You Wish: The Making of Princess Bride, Mandy Patinkin describes losing his father in 1972 and how much the line "I want my father back" touched him. He goes on to describe feeling after the scene with Christopher Guest where he defeats the six-fingered man that he had defeated the cancer that killed his father.

The first time I saw the film after Dad passed away, I broke down crying at that scene.

.. I'll warn you ahead of time, it's a little random.

On Christopher Titus: Norman Rockwell is Bleeding, he describes his father's four heart attacks. "They revoked his organ donor card."

My dad had three heart attacks in his 49 years on this planet. Or two heart attacks and one "incident." The incident occurred when he was 25. During my first health center exam, the nurse nearly dropped her clipboard when she looked at my medical history.

"He had a heart attack when he was 25 years old?"
"Yeah well, it wasn't a full attack. His blood pressure and heart rate were dangerously high. The doctors listed it as an 'incident' so his insurance wouldn't go up."
"(pause) this.. is not surprising for you.."
"Well, he'd been smoking for nine years at that point. He'd started smoking to get off of Valium. He was a heavy drinker in his late teens. And he'd been with my mother for four years at that point."

The second heart attack happened during my high school graduation procession. He later confessed he knew what was happening but didn't want to "steal my thunder." He then proceeded to stay and videotape the rest of the ceremony, drove MOTY home then helped chaperone my school's post-graduation party until 5 am.

"*DAD*, what the hell were you thinking!"
"Well, I wasn't going to let you kids have all the fun.."

That was Thursday night. Saturday morning, my father pokes his head into my room to let me know that he and mom are going to St. Anthony's - nothing's wrong, he's just not feeling well. Okay, Dad. I roll over and go back to sleep. Two hours later, my father calls me on the phone and asks me to call into work - he's not going to be able to drive me.

"Okay, is anything wrong?"
"I'm having a heart attack."
"..."
"Becky?"
"I'm here. You're *having* a heart attack?"
"Yes."
"...Okay."

That was the third heart attack. I called into work. I ordered pizza for the kids (three days in a row). Dad was in the hospital for five days. He had an angioplasty which showed 100% blockage, but the doctor ruled the cause as stress. Eleven days after his "stress heart attack," my mother got on a plane for Philadelphia and had a rendevous with the man she'd met on the internet a few months before.

The lesson here, kiddies? Don't want to have a heart attack: don't excessively smoke, take Valium, drink, eat fatty foods or marry a shameless cunt.

Dad must be looking out for me again: Dr. Zhivago's on Turner Classics. It was one of those movies he would sit up half the night to watch and I would usually zonk out about a third of the way through. It was one of his favorite films but I never watched it all the way through with him. He'd espoused most of the secrets in the first ten minutes anyway:

Alec Guiness: "Did anyone ever call your mother 'Lara?'"
Dad: "Yuri was the only one who called her Lara, her name was 'Larissa.'"

Gramico: "Your mother had a gift.."
Dad: "It's a gift.." (unsaid: remember that)

..talking about how Geraldine Chaplin couldn't act her way out of a paper bag and only got the role of Tanya because of who her father was.

The funeral scene is familiar now, and the first night Yuri spends at the Gramicos. "You're mother and I were great friends. We will look after you now."

I wonder what he's tring to tell me?

it's all over now. i don't know if much more can be said, or if I'm even capable of saying it.

my father's dead. they think the cancer became aggressive and spread from his pancreas to his colon. that's why he was so bloated. that's why the water pills weren't working.

it happened fast - too fast for any of us. but it was quiet, and he left peacefully just like he wanted to. i held his hand for the last three and a half hours and i was the first to feel him go.

we stayed at my aunt and uncle's last night, and we're staying there again tonight. i have to call close to 30 people to tell them about the arrangements for a memorial service - the same 30 people i called last night to tell them Dad had passed. i've been crying off and on for the past three days, then turning around to let other people cry on my shoulder. the kids start school next week, i start school the week after that. and, to top it all off, Mother of the Year's plane arrives at 6.

but, in an odd, Fellini-nightmare type way, it's all right.

because Dad's not in any pain anymore. he doesn't have to worry about work, or paying the bills, or making sure his oldest doesn't trip and fall on a rusty nail or something.

and he can watch over me all the time now, keeping me and my brother and sister and all my friends safe from danger and our own fuckbrain antics, which i imagine will be, if not fun, an interesting task for him. he's about to find a bunch of stuff he probably never wanted to know. if he hasn't found out already.

he was Super Dad all my life - this is just the latest upgrade.

now if i can just stop crying damn it..