Run Sheet
99/11/10
I just put my kids to bed.
My children are fascinated with the fact that my parents used to hit me. It’s often a topic of conversation between us. Every night that I’m home I spend awhile with them in their bedroom before they go to sleep, we lay there and talk, often I answer their questions about their grandfather.
It seems that as time passes since he died they wonder more and more about him, and they have a hard time equating the man who obviously cared about them deeply with the man who raised me. My father was a man with a violent temper, and very little patience, not a great combination if you’re a chubby, clumsy kid who isn’t as bright as his brother and sisters.
I have a really hard time explaining him to my boys. It’s a constant struggle to present a balanced picture. I try to explain that yes, he used to hit me, and yes, what he did was wrong and that no one deserves that kind of treatment. Yes, it hurt, yes, it hurt outside and inside. No, he wasn’t a bad man, yes, the man who held them and played with them was the same man. Yes, grandpa loved you, and I’m sure still does. Yes, grandpa loved me, no, he never told me so until he was dying, but he tried to show me.
Tonight we discussed the different kinds of hitting we shared.
I should explain that from the time I was five years old I was a boxer. My dad coached the local boxing club and I ended up going there. He and I boxed together until I was 33 and he was 63. He coached me throughout that time. I wasn’t bad, I was ranked 4th in Canada by the time I fought heavyweight. I was always an amateur, I didn’t want to take money for it. He never understood that.
My boys asked about when he hit me in the ring, and did it hurt.
I explained to them that yes, it did, but that was okay, it only hurt for awhile and it went away, I could be proud that I had endured the pain and continued. It was a skill that has literally saved my life a few times. I explained that I’m glad for every time he hit me in the ring, because he was never angry there. I know it might sound weird to people who have never been there, but that was where he really showed his love for me. You might not understand it, but that'’ okay, I do.
Eli said “Didn’t it hurt just as much to get punched at home as it did in the ring??”
I told him “Yeah, it did, but the ones I got at home still hurt today, the ones in the ring don’t”
I box with my children. We have great battles on the lawn in the summer, I teach them a bit about their heritage (boxing goes back in the family right back to great-grandfather Ross). Neither Mary nor I have ever struck them without gloves, and without laughter, and never to try to teach them anything but proper defense.
So far I’d like to think that they’ll feel less permanent pain than I do. God I hope so. I always am careful to explain to them that my dad did the best that he knew how. He didn’t hit me because he was a monster or a bad person. He knew no better.
I do that for two reasons:
1. Because It’s true.
He was a damn good man, and he cared a great deal for all of us, he was
also a very frightened, trapped and confused man who couldn’t always control
his anger, what he did was wrong, but I forgive him.
2. Because I want
them to know that the things I have done and will do aren’t because I don’t
care about them, but because I’m fallible like him.
I do my best, just like he did. And I screw up, just like he did. I flatter myself sometimes and say “Not in the same ways, and not as often”
Maybe, maybe not.
Anyway, here’s a poem I wrote that
might illustrate some of it, I dunno.
Let me know.
There comes a time to throw out
the trophies
I guess it's never easy
sure as hell wasn't for me
My trophies sat on my father's
mantle for years
a couple of years after his death
my wife told me
as gently as she could
that it was time to get them out
of there
My first reaction was
"I don't want those goddamn things"
I put off getting them for as
long as possible
Finally
I did.
I took my dozen or so statuettes
that had rested on the mantle
since they were brought home
on Saturday nights
flush with the latest glory
boasting of round two
or the sound the opponent made
as he hit the canvas
An eighth of an inch of dust had
settled in the twenty years they sat
I took them from their places
leaving clear spots in the grime
put them in a bag
It was harder than I thought
to drop them in the garbage can
when I got home
I kept two
the first I ever won
and the last my dad brought home
The only one he kept
when it came time to throw out
his