Loving a Flawed Father: “Forgive”?

My father. Pipe and all.

There’s a writing exercise I use when building my novels: Pause to imagine what your five (or six) senses are picking up in this moment. Then evoke them in the description.

When I describe my father that way, I begin with Touch. My dad felt different to my hands … nobody else had those long hairy arms, and when I held onto them as a kid, I knew I was safe. His other unusual aspect was the dome of his forehead, extending back where the hairline had already receded. As I recall the happy years, the ones when I was still very young and he was glad to focus on his family, I remember especially riding on his shoulders, often a treat during the last tired hour of a family hike. My orders were to hold onto his head, and I can feel in this moment the smooth hardness of skin-over-bone, something that nobody else, in my young experience, offered.

Hearing comes next, the familiar sound of his cheerful British-accented voice, commenting on the day’s news or describing the lumber we needed to purchase for the weekend’s project: “two by fours” and “half-inch plywood” were in my vocabulary very young. Thank goodness, Dad didn’t believe in kids using power tools — we should learn to do things by hand first, with the steady crunch of a drill bit while I cranked the “brace” and leaned my chest against the top to hold it straight, and the swish and rub of sandpaper wrapped…