Love & Fear

Sculpture by Claudia Cohen

To love a thing is intellectual; to love someone may be emotional; to simply love is human.  But how to love without love's homely and protective element of fear?  For example, my father lived to be 97, a ripe old age in anyone's book.  The last two years, he was crippled by a bad fall that broke three vertebrae and forced him off his cane and onto a walker, then a wheelchair.  I loved him very much, we were very much connected "at the hip" as he often said.  Why then, did it take me so long to let go of him when he was feeling so poorly?

Even though I was in my late 50s, I felt fear at the thought of life without him.  He was a brilliant and homespun genius, a poor farm boy who had done well for himself, becoming one of the first electronic engineers, inventing things and creating awesome systems for our home--automated lightning rods that flipped up when triggered by a humidity index in the rather unlikely event of an electrical storm, for instance. 

He could fix anything, install any stereo device in any car, wire anything and dispense frequent advice laced with homey Irish idioms.  I shook off the domestic talents of my mother as soon as I was able--rejected her finishing school manners and fashionable home decorating and tailoring and baking lessons in favor of routing around in dusty bins of bolts and wires.  Dad worked in radio, I worked in radio.  He was an adventurer, a gifted storyteller, I tried to follow suit.

Somehow, it seemed that my world would begin to fade and evaporate without his existence.  Then, as he began to slip away, I rose to the occasion and helped him have a good passage. 

In time, I came to see that love is not perishable, and in fact, it's transferable.  I have tried to take the helm with my own family, now well into middle age with six little grands among them.  I feel a bit fake about it, as if they might know I'm still a little kid inside, a "daddy's girl" or a Tomboy whose life has been driven by the love given at such an early age.

Lately, all of Dad's sidekicks and amici here in Kenwood have died -- Angelino Pedroncelli, Al Rossi, Roberto Guffante, Roy Strong, Kenny the deaf mute, all gone.  At times, I think I hear them down Laurel Avenue where "The Colonel", Bob Guffante lived in a house he built under a big oak tree where the gentlemen would sit, drinking from an unmarked green glass bottle that Rossi generally brought to sweeten the talk.  I even thought I saw Roy riding his bicycle, which he hadn't done for years before he died, holding his wine glass in one hand, circling the village as he visited friends.  I miss them all.

Earlier today, I walked down to the Colonel's place, where his daughters and son were having an estate sale.  We talked and laughed and espoused just like our fathers. 

I bought a few things, mementos, really.  Some old prints of soldiers for my daughter, an extravagant shoe horn and a homemade trashcan made from an old olive oil can with a hinged wooden top.  They threw in a cup the Colonel made from an old cat food can with a handle soldered on.

At one point, Linda Guffante began to speak feverishly about the first amendment and how important it was to allow everyone a say in the world, even if you don't like what they have to say.  I agreed, adding, "Everyone has a story."  Then, we were silent.  I turned to Linda and said, "You know, you sound like your father."  And she turned to me and said, "You sound like your's."  We both smiled and felt the warmth of love, love eternal, free and vitally important.

Sculpture by Claudia Cohen

Lovers, union is here,

the meeting we have wanted,

the fire, the joy.

Let sadness and any fear of death

leave the room.

The sun’s glory comes back.

Wind shakes our bells.

We are counters in your hand

passing easily through.

Music begins,

Your silence,

deepen that.

Were you to put words with this

we would not survive the song.

~Maulana Rumi

Translation by Coleman Barks