Uncertainty

World War II was the great separator of fathers and their children. Often dads came home to meet, in the flesh, three or four year old children for the very first time. Still in their mother's womb, or only days or weeks old when their dad left, children were thrust into the arms of what were to them, total strangers. Did they really understand when told their dad was far, far away fighting a war to keep them safe? Did the occasional photo really embrace the depth of the relationship for the dad? The tribute following depicts that kind of meeting between me and my dad. I was three and a half. 

 
 

 

 Uncertainty – hidden under hairbows,
A hat slightly askew.
Behind wide child eyes, and
Glasses tinted blue.
Uncertainty – in rumpled underwear,
And wrinkled sergeant’s stripes.
Hinting of resistance
When both are thrust into 
An unknown existence.

Uncertainty - This being a daughter,
This being a dad.
Strangers, robbed by war,
Of sharing what we had.
Hands almost touching
But afraid to grab hold
Uncertain of the outcome,
Of trusting what’s been told.

I study the shadows,
The stiff determined knees,
The high top brown of sturdy shoes.
The desire to run free.
Did this uncertainty form the soul of me?
Wondering now, Peering 
Into the eyes of that daughter,
The timid hand that dad wore,
Did that uncertainty 
birth my hate for war?
Mold a writer or some such?
Instill insatiable curiosity . . . ?
I’m certain of so little and driven by so much.
I wonder now,
If that first uncertain meeting,
Now robbed again by death,
Will once again repeat itself
When I draw my final breath?
Will dad be there to greet this daughter
When I come upon that shore?
As I was here to meet him 
When HE came home from war? 

Susan Haley ~ 2008 

 

 

 

 

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