scar tissue
I've been thinking about my dad's stories recently. I heard them so much growing up it was hard to really think of them as anything but stories. I wonder sometimes if he even realized that a lot of it was a way to replace trauma with scar tissue.
His parents put him to work when he was far too young--in some later versions of the story, after his memory was starting to fall apart, he was eight years old when he was serving as a guide at a dude ranch in Wyoming, and I've seen the photos of him from that time, he's not off by more than four years. When he was in middle school he talks about the time he spent the summer living in a shed on a family friend's farm, with no running water, so he could get up early every morning and work the fields. Most of his stories from his youth are either about that time he had no agency and endured some hardship that he was able to smile and laugh about decades later, or about those rare precious times he and his brothers were free.
These last were usually road trips. Not the family road trip variety, mind you--the "we need you to take a Greyhound to the middle of nowhere and drive back home" variety. It's a small wonder, in retrospect, that he loved flying so much. What is the sky but a long, empty road, free, for as long as you are in the cockpit, from the expectations that await you on the ground?
He prided himself on his tenacity, he joked about his stubbornness, he lived his life by diligently putting in the work, without complaining. There would be a reward at the end of all of that--there had to be, didn't there? But instead, he endured a life of hardship and loss and silent suffering--I think perhaps he thought that asking for help was a sign of weakness, but there is also the very real fact that being diagnosed with a psychiatric condition could lead to the revocation of your pilot's license.
It's easy to forget that often, trauma looks a lot like resilience. As his dementia advances, all we have are his old stories--many of which they had the foresight to collect in a book they proudly pass around to every family member who expresses an interest. But stories are powerful--enough that I think, as I reflect on them, I am finally coming to understand the man who was my father.
When he finally allowed himself to remarry, he was so much happier. For what may very well have been the first time in his life, he showed a willingness to do things for himself, things that he thought would be fun. So many long trips across the country in his plane, for no reason other than he liked the idea. And the year before he was diagnosed with dementia we--my sister, my dad, his wife, and me--took a little trip around the state, staying in little B&Bs and seeing all the small towns and the diverse geography of the region. He felt in many ways like a different person. It's a comfort, at least, that in the years before the dementia advanced to the point where he was no longer lucid, he was finally beginning to heal.