Quiet Mountain Essays

Copyright © 2009

A Gift from My Father
by
LisaMarie Berger

What gift do you treasure the most?

Mine is Item No. 24080: Musical Lighted Crystal Angel.  My father gave it to me in December of
1997.  Three months later he suffered a massive heart attack and passed away.

I am three and my father is my patient.  I eagerly arrange my new doctor kit while he lies on the
couch.  I take his temperature, then I check his blood pressure.  I put my plastic stethoscope in my
ears and I listen to his heart.  

“Everything sounds good, Daddy.”  I go into the bathroom and come back to wash his face.  
“Oh, that feels great honey.  Thank you,” he says.  Then suddenly, his eyes open up wide.  A look of
absolute panic comes over his face.  He calls to my mother in the other room.  “Pat? Where did Lisa
get the water from?” Seems the horrified look is the exact moment he realizes that I am too small to
reach the bathroom sink.  “I got it from the potty, Daddy!”

I am seven.  It is summer vacation and we are driving to Disney World.  I can feel the warmth of the
sun shining on me through the green-tinted glass window.  I sit relaxed and carefree as our car hums
down the highway.  One brother tosses a baseball back and forth between his bare hand and his
freshly oiled glove; my other brother opens his brand new pack of baseball cards and chews the
bubble gum from inside.  Elton John is on the radio.  Someone saved my life tonight, Sugar
Bear…Sweet freedom whispered in my ear. You’re a butterfly and butterflies are free to fly. Fly away,
high away…bye, bye…

I look at my father’s eyes in the rear-view mirror, and he looks back at me.  Although I can’t see his
mouth, I can tell by the shape of his eyes he is smiling.

This would be the end of my innocence.  The older I became, the harder it would be for my parents to
shelter me from the other side of my father. The side that kept him from truly enjoying anything.  He
worried.  He worried about many things, too many things.  At a young age, he began to self-soothe.  
Drinking too much.  Doing anything to make the worry stop.  This would continue, off and on, for
the rest of his life.

I am ten.  I haven’t lost an ounce of what my well-meaning aunts called “baby fat.”  I am awkward
and un-pretty.  Today at school I was made painfully aware that those combined three things will
most certainly guarantee that I am the last one picked for teams in gym class.  I walk into our living
room and I see my father sitting in a chair, eyes closed and perceptively sinking.  I kneel in front of
him. Get up! GET UP! I need you!  I yell, but the words never come out.  My body trembles with
anger and confusion.  I stand and walk to my bedroom, where I close the door and begin to draw.  I
have an artistic gift.  I get that from my father.  He was a wonderful artist.  At least that’s what people
told me.  

After that I would become hardened.  I had made up my mind.  My father was not there for me, so I
would return the favor.  Every time he reached out for me, I turned away.  I was so dreadfully wrong
to have done that, but how could I know what he was going through? If it were me, how would I
cope with the unnerving restlessness?

If I could travel back in time, I would go to my wedding day.  I would pull my twenty-four year old
self over to a corner, right before the announcement of the father-daughter dance is made, and I
would tell myself to smile this time.  Show respect to the man who gave you this life.  Because if you
don’t, on a cold October night in 2007, you will find the only television in your house that still plays
videotapes, and you will sit alone in that room watching this dance through the teary eyes of your
forty year-old self, and you will wish you had smiled for him.

With each passing year, I resemble my father more and more.  I looked at myself in the mirror this
morning.  I have his eyes.  As I stared at my face, I glanced downward and saw my eight year old
daughter standing behind me.  “What are you doing, Mommy?” she asks.  

“I was just thinking about my daddy.”

Contributor's Notes...

LisaMarie Berger lives in New Jersey with her husband and two daughters.  She is a freelance writer and editor.
She has also been a small-business owner for 12 years.  Her work has been published in The Asbury Park
Press, Home News Tribune, Atlantic Highlands Herald, Courier News, Courier Post, Daily Record, Daily
Journal, Manalapan Matters, and Marlboro Matters.  She is a member of The Monmouth County Creative
Writers' Group.

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