It was just another summer day of my 18th year when I saw him sitting on a mound of grass staring into the street. He was, himself, a mound. I could not stop staring at his rounded shoulders and drooping head with his knees pulled to his chest. He used to scare me with his harsh, mean, untamed tones. There was still some of that pending doom, but I felt safer now that he was outside of the cage he created for me. This was his moment when the divorce first became a reality to him. He was from this vision on, not only divorced from my mother, but divorced from our house, divorced from me and my brother.

Between my 18th and 38th year, there were only two more sightings. The first was in front of my brother’s apartment when my father and I shared a glance as we walked in different directions. Almost as a reflex action, I uttered “Do you remember your daughter?” and kept walking, but I couldn’t help noticing how my short question almost knocked him over.

Then there was the time when I was a young teacher, and he was spotted at my school asking if I worked there. Those who saw him described him in worried tones with adjectives befitting a street person. I never saw him then.

Did I ever see him? Did he really desire to be seen? He seemed to be always hiding within the costume of a tiger on the prowl, a lion wanting to be petted but not for long or a rhinoceros emerging from a sloppy mud-bed. I always knew he had a heart wanting to come out; but not knowing how to give it expression, he kept it under one of many covers.

Then during the summer of my 38th year, Joel, my husband-to-be, announced that he was going to meet my father and that I was coming along. Just one season before, my mother and her soon to be son-in-law had become dear friends. Her love for him grew beyond her love for me, it seemed. He was just as much a once-in-a-lifetime gift for her as he was for me. He said he needed to know my Dad, if he was to know me. I knew my attempts to reason Joel out of this purpose would be futile, and I didn’t try very hard.

Walking the long path to the door of the apartment, I stopped breathing and started to turn back. Joel turned me around with a gentle motion and a smile and reminded me to stay in the moment and to try not to look back. The door opened and we followed a little man as he returned to his big chair. He was wearing baggy clothes and a crooked smile. My father used to love to suck in his stomach as he stood at attention, revealing his muscles from shoulders to calves. Where had this person gone? Joel loved the person he saw, and the two men connected as if they knew each other longer than I had known either one of them. I observed this strange scene and wondered about these two characters. I realized I knew neither one of them very well.

During that first visit, forgetting Joel’s advice about leaving the past behind, I spewed out every bottled up angry thought I ever had and thrust them as rotten tomatoes all over my father, leaving me exhausted and the old man stunned. All the while, wide-eyed Joel was observing this drama in complete disbelief. Wanting to speak his truth and desperate for something that would ease the man’s pain, Joel uttered “I really like you, my friend”. With those words, Jack’s wounded heart began to heal and my heart welcomed him in. There had to be another meeting, a chance to make things right.

We returned for a second visit, and this time as my dad returned to his chair, I felt Joel gently pushing me toward him.  Aware that my childhood history was being totally rewritten, I held my breath and allowed the story to come to completion.  I approached the lap I had never known and found my place, my home.  I just let his soft arms enfold me in ways they never did before. I felt the warmth of his face as it beamed its glow toward me, and knew that I would never need anything else from him. We found an American flag, maybe from Dad’s war years and Joel wrapped it around the three of us. Jack gave Joel one of his tee shirts, a soft blue and white one, and we lingered in his apartment for a very long time.

Days later, Joel described this man and our adventure to my mother. This was a man my mother never knew. There had been a time my mother cooked for him, and that would start again. She started to pack up chicken soup, while calling upon my brother to be her delivery service.

Months later, my husband and brother and I gathered at my father’s bedside and then a short time later, we were joined by my mother at his gravesite. It was just the four of us standing over him as he left this world. He had finally entered our hearts forever.