belongingness

The need to belong…gain acceptance, approval, support, and connection…in other words LOVE…is one of life’s basic fundamental needs.  While it may not be all we need, it’s a helluva motivator. It can lead us to change just about anything…our behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, relationships, address…even our hairstyles and handbags (Birkin?  2.25? Neverfull?) 

After all, being like the other kids is important.

We held our breath and gazed up in anticipation while they entered the room.  All of them were smiling, nodding or waving, until Mrs. Varnes caught their attention away from us and onto her welcome to the kindergarten class.  They stood watching her, unaware of the whispers between the children seated cross-legged before them on the floor.   Murmurs of, “Which one is your mom?” and “There she is!”, echoed softly behind our cupped hands.  

I didn’t answer right away.  I couldn’t.  My mother did not file in along with the others.  She was at home with my younger sister and brother.  Did I know that she wouldn’t be there?  I can’t recall, but do remember asking myself, “Why did he have to come?” It was a mother’s open house, his very presence in the room was odd…

…and felt uncomfortable.  

Still dressed in his heavy-duty work shirt, rumpled trousers, and thick, black belt, I knew my father no way resembled those of my classmates. Those dads wore white shirts and ties with sharply creased slacks and suit jackets. There was no way his bulky belt could ever fit through their refined belt loops. 

On top of that, his thick, black wavy hair was badly in need of a comb,  swooping down on one side of his forehead with a soft curl. He scratched at the telltale shadow on his face that all the other dads didn’t get until five o’clock.  To have one at ten a.m. was totally inappropriate to me.

He shifted from leg to leg, looking down at the floor, occasionally glancing over at the teacher. He didn’t know what to do with himself.  When he wasn’t clasping and wringing them, he crossed his arms and tucked his hands into his armpits, acutely aware of the dirty fingernails and scars from years of handling vegetable crates and box cutters.  

In the wee hours, five nights a week, my father’s business commute was to the produce market in the heart of Chicago. After procuring vegetables and fruit for restaurants all over town, he delivered them to waiting chefs and kitchen staff early in the morning, returning home to sleep while all the other fathers “officed”.

When he was with his friends on Saturday night he was a handsome guy, sharply dressed, boisterous and teasing, but that guy was nowhere to be found this morning. I watched his discomfort as he stood amongst this flock of prim, perfectly preened mothers.  In another time or place, he’d be flirting with them, but here at school he was completely out of his element.  Despite having three children, I believe he was inhabiting the role of “parent” for the first time in his life, and he had no idea how to do that.

Of course, he thought he did.  

At home he ruled the roost, flaunting his prowess and authority by whipping that big, black belt around and yelling.  Hearing the “whoosh” as he pulled the belt out of its loops would send us running for cover.  Not only weren’t we to be heard, but I don’t think he wanted to see us either.  It was the way he was raised and I think he thought that being a father by emulating his made him a member of that exclusive club…a desire that went much deeper than his five o’clock shadow.  

As I write this, I can feel his pain.  At the time, I could only feel my own.

Perhaps, just once, if he had searched the crowd of whispering, excited children to find my pleading eyes and meet them with love and a smile.  Perhaps then, I could have been grateful…thankful that he showed up. Perhaps then, I wouldn’t have noticed his tousled hair or rumpled pants and happily claimed him as mine.  But because he never claimed me that way, not that day or really ever, I was hurt…embarrassed, and sorry that he was there at all.

Now I see it through a different lens. 

Many strange practices have manifested in the name of love. Wanting to belong sometimes causes us to focus on someone or something to the exclusion of everyone or everything else and we don’t even know it. What we do and why we do it is not always in our consciousness and plays out in many different ways. If we’re lucky, we become aware of our behavior, which allows us to forgive and change it. Remorse over some of my own has afforded me the opportunity to become a better person. I am grateful.

All these years later, I have to give my father credit for trying. Without enough time to get home and spruce up before coming to school, he chose to give it a shot…to be present.  Although, he wasn’t really present, was he?  Standing there perhaps, but never engaging with anyone or anything around him…feeling as if he didn’t belong there, wishing to be anywhere else.   It’s how I remember him throughout much of my life.  Given that, it’s not surprising that dementia set in a few years before he died.  The challenge was over…presence would never again be expected of him.

Back in kindergarten…

I scanned the mothers and spotted one with dark hair and a pretty face.  She was tall and slim, wearing a fitted black dress with a white collar.  Her black hat had a large brim and white scarf around the crown.  I remember thinking that she was e-l-e-g-a-n-t and would do nicely.

After my appropriation, I could answer the girl on my left, so I pointed and whispered, “She’s that one, in the black dress.”  I lied.  “Ooh, she’s pretty!”  As I was smiling and nodding in agreement, I was unaware that the boy in front of us, Mark, had overheard me, his eyes following my finger.  He turned around and yelled, “Hey, that’s MY mother, not yours!”  Oh, God, additional mortification! 

Caught in my attempted deception, I mumbled quickly.  Something to the effect that, “I was only saying she was pretty, like my mother…sorry…”.  Paying his mother a compliment seemed to get me off the hook.  Even better,  it drew attention away from the fact that my mother wasn’t there and that the father all the children were whispering about belonged to me.  

Moving on…

Many years later, Mark and I shared a good laugh when I reminded him about “borrowing” his mom that morning.  We spoke not long ago, each reporting the passing of our mothers, mine in March, his in May. Our fathers died long ago.  I hope all of them have found peace.  

I wish my childhood had been different. I think, in one way or another, most of us do. Had I understood the significance of what was happening and how things play out, it would have saved years of misunderstanding and grief. Does it ever work that way?

Forgiveness, whether you’re asking for or granting it to yourself and others, might be difficult, but it is how we heal and move on.   It’s never too late to belong…gain acceptance, approval, support, and connection…whether across the table, the phone lines, or through a loving memory.  

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