A lot of growing up was figuring out why my parents couldn't give me what I wanted/needed. My father, in particular, because he had these four girls (my mom, sisters, and me) looking to him as a protective, stabilizing force; and all of us turned out haplessly bereft and so so sad because of it.
I had to learn to look at my father more as a person, and less as a father. I picked up pieces of his emotionally stunted history, and I understood, and I suppressed all of the rationalizations, and I felt sorry for him.
I talk to him sometimes, short bursts of conversation. I don't feel like telling him anything in particular, though at the same time there is nothing I would withhold. We even talked about dating once.
Usually he asks me about my life, mostly about my health. When I stumble over my Chinese he helps me out. When I mention some worldly aspiration or another, he reminds me about all the dangers out there. Inevitably he goes on one rant or another, usually about America, and after a minute or two I tell him I have to go. And he lets me go without question, his tone a little sad and resigned.
I feel a little like crying after each and every call.
Why?
Because I have learned to divorce moments from context. Because although I will never string those moments together as fatherly love, I am glad that he has shown that he cares for me. And I feel no need to judge him beyond that moment.
And you can argue that relationships are an aggregation of emotion - you add up the good and the bad and you figure out how to feel from that. But with the ones I have loved, I can and will take the best, and forgo the rest. As for the others, well, I'll judge them by the moment.
Maybe that makes me emotionally homeless, perpetually exposed to the wind and rain of other peoples' change of hearts. But I bask in the sunshine too, and sometimes that is all I know.
And someday there will be someone to sit with me, and home will be his side warming mine.