Jack's Fathers Day

I’m thankful in this life to be the proud father of five beautiful baby girls. Ages go from 19 all the way down to 6 years old. Every single one of them is a blessing bestowed on this humble servant of life. We see far too much of dead beat dads and yet we don’t go out of the way for the guys that just do what is right for their babies. We need to change that scenario around. We need to break the cycle of the kids without dads as best we can and in any way that we can.

I grew up as the baby boy of a family of seven kids. We were by far not rich, affluent, or even had a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of. One thing we did have growing up was a dad that loved his children to no end, would give his life for them, sacrificed for them everything he could. All of my years growing up, dad worked hard in the trucking industry, eventually becoming a manager on the night shift. Every single payday he would drop his check on the kitchen table for mom to cash or deposit to pay the household bills. It actually got to the point where the bank only recognized my mothers forgery of his signature at the bank. All he asked for was a few dollars to go to the Irish Club with her on Saturday night for a few drinks and some dancing. As I became old enough to partake in adult beverages I used to love to see them dance on air together. It was almost as if they were magical in one another’s arms as they moved with the ease of a well tuned timepiece. Two people moving to the music and yet they were one.

My mother used to take a ton of crap from her sisters that married well because she managed the families finances. My mother came from a very well off and society connected family. Mom used to be able to smack them down because her husband never hit her and theirs did. Mom was the equivalent of the Catholic confessional in her small little home that attracted her sisters and brothers to no end as to how to deal with the relationship disasters they had to live with.

Dad wanted to beat the crap out of his brother in laws many a time but he differed to his wife’s wishes not to do so. One of my sisters was involved with a religious cult, to much LSD or whatever she was on before that point in her life, he stood by my mother as she dived into the bible to counteract the version of truth she was dictated for several years. Mind you, my sister disappeared off the face of the earth for two years and nobody knew where she was. We were all terrified. Dad finally had enough and was taking his baby girl back. He went to the house she was in when she finally came back to the city and was promptly placed in a police cruiser as his daughter looked the other way. The police let him go and told him to just go home. He cried at the kitchen table as mom tried to console him back at the house.

When my oldest brother was kicked out by his wife down in Florida, 1,500 miles from home, and when the call came my mother panicked. There was no such thing as credit cards in those days. There was no money to pay for a plane ticket back home to Massachusetts. That week they had used up all of the available cash to repair a broken septic system. Dad came out with an envelope of money he had been saving in his bedroom for a vacation trip for the family. My brother was home a few days later.

What I’m getting at is that I am living my life in the footsteps of the man I admire most life. Jack was an amazing father, an amazing husband, and most of all my friend. Was he a bastard at times, hell YA! Was he a hero, hell YA! Most of my siblings don’t recognize all that he did for his children but I do. He sacrificed more than anyone will ever know and yet he will never know how much I love the man for all that he did for his family. Jack was a class act that I can only dream of being able to follow in his footsteps. He was my mentor and my hero, most of all he was my friend till the day he died in 2003.

Love ya and miss ya Dad! Happy Fathers Day.

Mat aka Papamoka

Fathers Day and Real Dad’s

Fathers Day is here again and all I can think of is my own Dad that passed away in 2003. My Dad was a good man, an honest man, a hardworking man that happened to have seven kids. He was Irish and the television was broken so I’m not giving any excuses for a large family.

Dad loved his family and he showed it as best he could and the only way that he knew how. He never bought expensive toys for himself. No golf clubs, no motorcycles, no fancy clothes or shoes. Matter of fact he used to go to a shoe repair shop to get his heals and souls replaced. This was a Dad that dropped his paycheck in Mom’s hand and he hadn’t signed his own name on it in over thirty years. Mom signed, cashed, and paid the families bills. What the family needed he provided the means. Mom handled the details of how to get it done with the money they had.

I recall the good times more so than my older siblings and to me he just wasn’t the man that made and enforced the rules of a large family but he was also my friend. My Dad was not the same Dad that my sisters knew. Dad loved his daughters but he never understood how the female mind worked so he stepped aside and let Mom handle the alien species of the household. He wasn’t the same Dad that my older brothers knew either. With each one of his seven children he had only his own personal way of dealing with his children. He wasn’t a Doctor Phil Dad but he gave it his best shot. Where he may have failed in some of his children’s eyes he succeeded in others. Seven children are seven very different people. Each one of his children had a very different relationship with him. Some of us took to heart what he was all about and some of us chucked the bird at him for being over protective and concerned when Mom was crying.

We all grew up, we all survived Dad at his worst and Dad at his best. What I love to remember most is that he loved all his children no matter our faults and failures. We were and are all his babies and that is what a true Dad is all about.

Dad became frail after Mom died. He ventured back up north from Florida. When he started to decline we took care of Grampa Jack as best we could. When Alzheimer’s took over his mind I know that he and I were still a team. Till his last day on this Earth he still looked at me as a friend, someone he could be comfortable with and a calm place to be in a storm of confusion. He didn’t know my name but I knew his. That is all that mattered.

Being the baby boy it was he and I that bonded the most. I will never have a friend that will accept me no matter my faults like my Dad did and frankly I never want to replace the friendship that my Father and I had. Jack O’Keefe was my best friend and he was also my Dad. I loved him as a friend and also as my Dad. I can only hope that I can be half the man he was as a father.

Happy Fathers Day Dad!

I love you Dad and miss you my friend,

Matthew