10 – Locks

Dad,

I think this will be my last letter to you. I don’t know where you are now, but I’m hoping that, somehow, my words have been finding their way to you.

A few years ago, Benson and I moved to Seattle because he got a job at Google. He’d been unhappy at Basis for a long time, but he stuck it out so we wouldn’t have to disrupt the kids. Once Rutie graduated from high school, we felt it was finally time for him to get out of there. He loves his new job and, by a weird coincidence, Rutie lives about an hour away, in Tacoma. Hannah lives in Minneapolis now and Caleb is in Chicago.

The part of Seattle where Benson and I live is called Ballard. The Hiram M. Chittenden Locks are about a ten minute walk from our house. This summer, we’ve strolled over to the locks most evenings after he’s finished practicing the piano and I’ve finished washing the dishes. It’s a pleasant place to go at the end of a hot day – cool and breezy. And there’s always something interesting going on – a fishing boat on its way to Alaska, a tiny tugboat pushing a huge barge, new boat owners who haven’t quite mastered the art of tying up their craft.

Salmon on their way to the fish ladder sometimes jump right out of the water, while swarms of smelts pour down the smelt shooter, heading for their lives in the ocean. Seals bob close by, waiting for an easy meal. Tourists exclaim in various languages, seagulls squawk overhead, a freight train rumbles across the nearby bridge.

The other evening, leaning on the railing, watching the activity, I suddenly found myself saying to Benson, “My dad would have loved it here.”  

The thought came out of nowhere, like a gift. I don’t think it was a gift from God, since I don’t believe in God. I also don’t believe in ghosts, so I don’t think you’re hanging around at the locks, sending me thoughts. I guess the idea came from my own self, some wiser part of me that knows it’s finally safe to think of you in a more positive, balanced way.

I remember how much you loved locks. Whenever we went on vacation, if there were any locks within a hundred miles of where we were camping, we had to drive to them and have a look around. How bored we all were. How excited you were.

Tonight, Benson and I saw an older man sitting on one of those walkers that can also double as a seat. He was listening to a baseball game on a portable radio and playing cribbage with a middle-aged woman. She was sitting on a bench with the board beside her, dealing the next hand.

I was instantly transported back to childhood and playing cribbage with you after dinner.  I remembered the story of the time when I beat Great Uncle Bill at a game of cribbage. He was a legendary cribbage player, the one who taught you how to play, just as you taught me. I don’t have any memory of the event, but I do remember that you were so excited about it that you wrote down as much of the play by play as you could remember, and gave it to me to keep.  I still have that piece of paper.

When Benson and I were crossing the street on the way home from the locks, we saw another older man driving a car with his left elbow resting on the rolled down window, holding onto the edge of the roof with his left hand. Once again I was transported, this time to the backseat of our station wagon, sitting with Linda Haller and Susan Doskocil, as you drove us home from our weekly dance class and teased us about our leotards. You always drove with just your right hand on the steering wheel, up at the top; in nice weather, you rested your left elbow on the rolled down window just like the man driving by.

Maybe I’m wrong and you are haunting the locks. Or maybe, in this place of both locking and unlocking, my heart is able to follow suit, to not just close, but also to open.

To be honest, when you died, my first thought was, “He can’t hurt me anymore.” But this evening, when I suddenly thought, “My dad would have loved it here,” I realized something has shifted in me. In that moment, I missed you. I never thought I would say that, but I find, after all these years, it’s finally true.

I miss your passion for ideas and words. I miss exchanging letters with you. I miss the deep feelings we shared with each other in those letters, and the intimacy we built by doing so. I miss catching sight of your love for me now and then, despite our walls.

If only we had been able to share our pain, to be allies instead of combatants. I see your pain now, as clearly as I’ve always seen my own. But back then, I was too lost in my own pain to understand yours and I think you were too lost in your pain to see mine. We were both pushed away by the person we loved most. We were both angry because neither of us could help the other. But at long last I believe I have forgiven both you and myself. I hope you also have found your way to forgiveness.

I wish you were still alive. I wish you could come and visit me, and we could stroll over to the locks after dinner and see what’s going on, watch the sun set, smell the faintly fishy water, maybe stop for some french fries on the way back home. But perhaps this is exactly what has happened.  You’ve come to visit. I hope you’ll come again.

Karen