“I know you are tired but come, this is the way.”
Rumi said that.
It is soon to be Fathers Day (M. Mickey Lebowitz 1918-2000). Not enough sleep and some bad juju brought me to this tarmac meditation on my long road to here. It took me a very long time to realize that where my father was concerned, most of what was wrong between us was on me. He was a good man, reserved and thoughtful and wryly funny, disciplined and thorough, hardworking and committed to a world and its peoples much bigger than he. He loved his family fiercely and with a loyalty that knew no compromise. I saw all that when I was young, admired it, and rejected nearly all of it in the self-imposed miasma of drugs and bad choices. Lately I have struggled with what I was tryin’ to be, with who I used to be. I became an empty version of myself. I have come to know that simply to be who I am right now is what matters. Warts and all. A few weeks ago I came across the following piece by Senator John McCain:
“Not all the Americans who fought in the Lincoln Brigade were Communists. Many were, including Delmer Berg. Others, though, had just come to fight fascists and defend a democracy. Even many of the Communists, like Mr. Berg, believed they were freedom fighters first, sacrificing life and limb in a country they knew little about, for a people they had never met.
“You might consider them romantics, fighting in a doomed cause for something greater than their self-interest. And even though men like Mr. Berg would identify with a cause, Communism, that inflicted far more misery than it ever alleviated — and rendered human dignity subservient to the state — I have always harbored admiration for their courage and sacrifice in Spain.”
***
Spanish Civil War Poster
“’The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for’, Jordan thinks as he waits to die, ‘and I hate very much to leave it’. But he did leave it. Willingly.
“Mr. Berg went to Spain when he was a very young man. He fought in some of the biggest and most consequential battles of the war. He sustained wounds. He watched friends die. He knew he had ransomed his life to a lost cause, for a people who were strangers to him, but to whom he felt an obligation, and he did not quit on them. Then he came home, started a cement and stonemasonry business and fought for the things he believed in for the rest of his long life.
“I don’t believe in most of the things that Mr. Berg did, except this. I believe, as Donne wrote, ‘no man is an island, entire of itself.’ He is ‘part of the main’. And I believe ‘any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind.’”
2620 Jefferson St.
My father was one of those guys. And while he didn’t go to Spain to fight, he raised money for the Lincoln Brigade on the street corners of Union Square in New York City during the 1930’s; he printed leaflets, organized rallies and stood tall in support of the rights of of the oppressed Spanish loyalists. His dedication to freedom from Fascism knew no bounds and he enlisted in the US Army prior to Pearl Harbor to get into the “fight.” His politics cost him dearly in later life as the US government frowned on folks who were “prematurely into fascist “ in the euphemism of the times. His work life was restricted and he was on various lists at the FBI et. al. It took years for him to be able to travel freely and for my mom to not worry about whether or not he had been arrested on his way to work in the mornings as arresting people on their way to work in the mornings was the habit of the FBI in those days. She used to wake up and watch him walk down the block – we never knew that there was more to that watchfulness than a fond good morning-goodbye and a wish for him to have a good day at work. Ours was an insecure household for reasons that had only to do with heartfelt politics and fiercely defended philosophy.
I never knew the difficulty of it all and when I found out about it years later I blew it off as a romantic, heroic fairy tale which was way beyond my capacity to adopt and make real as a guide for my own personal commitments. After all, Spain was a righteous war, and Vietnam was an unholy mess. My responses to both were laced with what I came to know as my own selfish predilections for drugs, alcohol and bad choices.
“I learned life were no dream /I learned truth deceived /Man is not God /Life is a century /Death an instant.” Gregory Corso said that.
I started today, after the long night’s journey to daybreak, with the realization that Dad (Mickey), you been on my mind– go figure.
“Perhaps it’s the color of the sun cut flat
An’ cov’rin’ the crossroads I’m standing at
Or maybe it’s the weather or something like that…” Bob Dylan said that a long time ago about a love that was no longer in his life.
Love to you always, and if not always so easily expressed, it is deeply felt nevertheless, and laced with a large measure of gratitude. It is clear to me that whatever little of me has come to be worthy and upright in the physically and emotionally complex days of my life these past few years, I am your son in so very many stubborn, thoughtful and perseverant ways and it works for me, best it can. I still suck with money and frugality, Mickey, but I’m getting better.
Image Credit
Photos by Michael Lebowitz. All rights reserved.
Poster image: No original copyright found (United States Library of Congress)
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