Father's Day, 2006 - My Dad

Father, I called him Daddy, and Dad. Today is Father’s Day. I miss him, though we were miles away, I miss talking to him on the phone and miss being able to say today “Happy Father’s Day, Dad”, and to hear one of the funny responses he would give me to that wish.

My parents were German, and I think they were brought up to not show their feelings. When I was growing up, I never once heard my Mom or Dad say “I love you”. Now, I’m not saying that I didn’t feel their love, of course in my heart I knew they loved me, but I never heard the words from them. I used to tell them “I love you”, but never was there a response back from them. I always knew that my Mother loved me…Mothers cuddle, speak softly, do things with their children, that make them feel loved. My Dad was always so busy working on the farm. When I was little, he did a lot with me, because Mom worked at the doctors office, and he was the one home. I have great memories of riding the tractor with him as he worked the corn (with the advent of treated corn seedlings this isn’t done anymore), he would sing the funniest songs to me. I would follow him around the barn and the chicken houses, as he did his work. But, as I grew older, Daddy distanced himself. (As an adult, I’ve learned that Dad’s often do become more distant with their daughters at this age). Dad was sentimental, but like most men, did not ever want to show it. Through my pre-teen and teenage years, I was very unsure of my Dad’s love for me. He never said much to me at important times of my life, graduation, my plans after school, my struggles I had with my first jobs out of school, when I became engaged to a boy at age 19, Daddy never talked to me about these things. Even when we talked about the wedding to Bob and my pending trip to MN., he was quiet, he would sit there when Mom and I talked, and say nothing. It was always my Mother, my Mother was always there. I guess maybe it was because he was too busy working, when he wasn’t working, he was exhausted. Also, he was guiding 4 sons, and probably thought the girls were Mom’s job.

At my wedding, when he walked me down the aisle, he had a beaming smile on his face, I knew he loved me, but I yearned for him to say it or to at least say something "sentimental" but he didn't.

The morning that Bob and I left for Minnesota, we had a snowfall the night before, and Dad had to open the lane for us to get out. The week before, even the night before Daddy said nothing to me. He helped us load the UHAUL, Mom and all my siblings said good-bye, we hugged, lots of hugs and lots of tears…and Daddy just standing there through it all. Then, I walked up to him to say good bye, and then he hugged me and wouldn’t let go for the longest time, and he said the three words I’d always wanted to hear…. “I Love You”. I cried, in fact the whole way up the road, I kept saying to Bob “he loves me, he loves me, he loves me”…well Bob kept saying “well of course, didn’t you know?” It’s a long way across the PA turnpike and Bob will tell you, he sure got tired of hearing me going on and on about how much those words meant to me. It was the most important thing he ever said to me –(except when he told me to always “Trust in the Lord”). If I had not moved away from home would I have ever heard those words?

When Mom and Dad would visit us here and we would go home, they would both tell us “I love you”. The wall had been broken. How nice, that we didn’t have to wait until their sick bed or their death bed to hear those important words from them. I wrote a note to Daddy about 5 years ago thanking him for that December morning in 1969.

My last visit to him in the nursing home when he was very sick, hard as it was for him to
talk, because he could hardly breathe…he said more than once “I love you”.

Linda Ebersole Pugliese,
daughter of Gerald Masemer Ebersole, Farmer & Father to Six - 1919-1984