I just passed the fifteenth anniversary of my stepfather’s death, and it will soon be Father’s Day. So John Albert Hansbrough is on my mind. He died in the spring of 2000 at the age of 81. He was 49 years old when he married my mother, and I like to think that, in many ways, John and I grew up together. I was 21 years old when I first met him, still reeling from the difficult years at the end of my parents’ marriage. I wasn’t ready, or mature enough, to give up my own suffering to make room in my life for this loud, big (6’4″, about 240lbs), outgoing, braggart tradesman.
My mother had moved on in her life because she had to: perpetually dependent on others, my mother was charming and charming as long as her needs were met. And in Juan they were. I resented him for his difference from my father, who was small, intellectual, aloof, quiet, business-class, and not bald (was my mother totally indiscriminate in her taste in men? Were his needs the only criteria for relationship?); I resented him because he was willing to take care of my mother, allowing her to remain the child that she was. In short, it was hard to see my mother happily cared for when she had never cared for me the way I thought she needed. The more I resisted John’s intrusion into my life, the louder and more boastful he became. My visits to his house were tests of my patience and tolerance, most of which I and my smart mouth failed.
Until a visit where I made my mother the target of all my raw anger. We had a terrible fight, or rather, I had a terrible fight with her. About what, I’m embarrassed to mention that she was so trivially juvenile. When you’re brimming with as much toxicity as I am right now, it doesn’t take much to cause a Vesuvian eruption. Using his usual strategy of retreating behind a closed bedroom door, he left me screaming and angry in the living room, where John sat quietly in his favorite chair. the pink; he approached me, snotty and sobbing in frustrated desperation; he took me in his gigantic arms and whispered, “You have no idea how much your mother loves you.” And with that I broke down, and he took me with him into his flesh and held me for as long as I needed to cry.
He put up with my crap for years, still managing to love me and provide just what I needed at just the right time. Even more remarkable because John never had children of his own, but he instinctively knew how to be a father at the time. My mother, my demanding mother!, he loved him because he was devoted and kind. By giving me the fatherly love that he had craved for so long, John Albert Hansbrough became my real father that day. And he also gave me back my mother.
From then on, John and I were good friends. I simply adored him for everything he had taught me about love, responsibility, and connection. I did what I could to support him in caring for my mother while she was made worse by her poor health and her disability made worse by her passivity and her willful helplessness. He predeceased her, exhausted and ill, but a caretaker to the end.
As she was grieving for him, a friend shared what she had done after her own father’s death. She said to go find a jewelry charm of an animal whose features reminded me of what I admired about it, put it on a chain and wear it around my neck; he would be with me that way, and could be aware of his example
I chose a moose figure that is also part human, a stylized warrior standing tall with outstretched arms. The very image of what John was: big, strong, fearless, open. I used it all the time for about a year after John died, and my friend was right. That helped. He still does, when I need him to be with me. I say, “You have no idea how much your daughter misses you.”
