Raising Father

By Frank Rich

Raising Father is about caring and caring people, and the essentials in each that enable them. It is a story of role reversals and concurrent, clashing perspectives, as recorded by an articulate young daughter after her mother’s death. In this insightful saga, she weaves the brilliant narrative of her father Max, a conceptually challenged, creatively gifted, and recently widowed man.  The story unfolds to introduce the now deeply missed person–-the deceased wife and mother—whose extraordinary care, acuity and integrity, nevertheless, continues to shape the ones she has so loved. What is in jeopardy is the trajectory of each of her loved ones, and the deep values and commitments that she riveted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Mar 31, 2012
• ISBN: 9781425977146

Book preview

Table of Contents

Author’s Note

Forward

Prologue

Chapter 1 - The Cemetery

Chapter 2 - And later

Chapter 3 - The Art and its Patrons

Chapter 4 – Off Kilter

Chapter 5 - The Balance and the Joy

Chapter 6 - Talent and Genius

Chapter 7 - The Grief

Chapter 8 - The Quietness

Chapter 9 - Max

Chapter 10 - The Opinions

Chapter 11 - The Loneliness

Chapter 12 - The Tour

Chapter 13 - The Return of Routine

Chapter 14 - The Poem

Chapter 15 - As Ghost and Guardian Angel

Chapter 16 - Sunday

Chapter 17 - Transition

Chapter 18 - Catching Up

Chapter 19 - Ambush?

Chapter 20 - Good Day!

Chapter 21 - Family Service

Chapter 22 - Brave New Morning

Chapter 23 - Love, Truth, Recovery

Chapter 24 - A Fresher Feeling

Chapter 25 - Dance

Epilogue

Postscript

Acknowledgements

Bio

Author’s Note

For all the years that we have been together, we humans have never known love to be a popular movement. Unless we consider the Age of Aquarius its equal, the 60’s were also a time of unusual treachery and dissension.

Despite our natural energy to come together, we are sometimes impostors of the loving ethic that informs opportunity in relationships. Perhaps, more importantly, our ability to reach out and touch another is increasing exponentially—via the Internet, the ubiquitous cell phone, and the broadcast media—while at the same time we live in an increasingly dangerous and isolated world.

The story of Max Saarndt is offered toward an understanding of the unique quality in each that calms an angry spirit, and which joins left and right at the bow of temperance, if not to the seminal love of the universe and its people that is born in us. This is not a new idea, but rather, a look at an old one in a new light. What happens next of significance in this world, may be up to you. Least, it will be at the hand of people.

Raising Father is about caring and caring people, and the essentials in each that enable them. If Abraham Maslow was correct about self-fulfillment, our desire for it a search after the ‘meaning in life,’ and which is achieved by acts of the will, we are that much closer to finding our own true north by the eschatological joy in this simple story. This manuscript is protected by the copyright laws of the United States of America, and is subject therein, according to its tenants, and which is wholly and solely the property of the author; and may not be copied, distributed, or otherwise revealed to any not authorized by the author or his duly-appointed agent.

Forward

Raising Father is an absolutely engaging story of role reversals and concurrent, clashing perspectives, as recorded by an articulate young daughter after her mother’s death. Closely related adults, who should know each other well, see entirely different things in the same situations, and live in different worlds. This young girl’s perceptions of adult relational games– when her own future is dramatically at stake—are memorable and profound in their own right.

In another sense, Raising Father is the insightful saga of her father Max, a conceptually challenged, creatively gifted, and recently widowed man. Max’s brilliant and loving young daughter weaves the revealing narrative. This novel unfolds to introduce the now deeply missed person–-the deceased wife and mother—whose extraordinary care, acuity and integrity, nevertheless, continues to shape the ones she has so loved. What is in jeopardy is the trajectory of each of her loved ones, and the deep values and commitments that she riveted.

Raising Father connects in one way or another to each of us. As you may remember, a common saying when some of us were children was that mathematician-physicist Albert Einstein had used only about 5% of his brain potential—or perhaps 10%, depending on who was estimating his vast mind. We were then challenged to think what the rest of us could accomplish if we used much more of our own personal potential, even if that potential was far less than Dr. Einstein’s. What a thought!

We now know that there are numerous measurable dimensions of personal potential, many different kinds of personal intelligence for imagination, conceptualization, emotion, analysis, creativity, perception, problem-solving, and more—and each one of us with different evidence of capacities. Generally it is only with the help of wise parents and discerning teachers that parts of some of our inborn capacities are uncovered and developed. Most remain undiscovered, tragically for the person and for everyone else. A wise man once said Train up a child in the way he or she should go…. But most teachers, friends, and parents do not take the time to discern each individual potential and which way each child should grow. Kahlil Gibran may have said it best in expressing the sentiment: I have learned silence from the talkative, toleration from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet, strange, I am ungrateful to those teachers.

In our risk-averse world where a prime value is to avoid mistakes, teachers, employers and even friends and relatives are generally unable to affirm, or even to recognize, heretofore undeveloped ability. Some will even remain blind to developed and demonstrated ability within those that are otherwise challenged.

Can a person be emotionally challenged and logically brilliant at the same time? How about logically challenged and artistically accomplished? How do we recognize these cases when we have only two or three standard measures of ability? This novel gives some clues.

In Raising Father, one person saw Max’s maximum area of potential and helped develop it dramatically, while others— even those with the appropriate professional skills to know much better--chose to remain blind, and even ignorant. Some even exploit their professional training to justify their insistent blindness.

As is often the case for many, we find comity with the stories we hear. This Raising Father predicament is a first hand experience of mine. For several reasons outside of my control, I entered 6th grade a full two and a half years behind. I was doing the work of a person half way through the third grade, though in a classroom of sixth graders my age. As a result, I was the class dunce, unable to keep pace in even the slowest special groups--including the lowest reading group and the lowest math group. I was also teacher’s pest, because I was so out of touch with the plans and purposes of the classroom, and I hated every day of school.

For a little background--I was in school for two and a half years before anyone else realized that I could not see the chalkboard. In fact, I could not see the teacher or anything else in the front of the room. After I was first fitted for glasses, I knew a whole new world. In fact, I literally had to learn how to climb stairs again since I could now see them clearly, and that refreshing wealth of data was oddly distracting!

Now I could see the teacher, the chalkboard, the pages of books, and fellow students. Wonderful! But just as I gained this benefit I also learned of my dyslexia, which became an issue, in addition to being years behind in reading and math preparation. I would brace myself to get it right, but look was always kool, and I read 95 as 59. My teachers and peers thought I was either goofy or retarded, or both. And so I remained behind, with social promotions only.

Mrs. Ethel Smith, my sixth grade teacher, had a different view. Somehow she saw ability where my parents, peers, and other teachers had seen nothing. She dramatically convinced me that I had superior math ability, she reminded me of this ability daily, she prepared extra work for me to do at home every evening, and she daily tutored me after school. After a couple months, I was able to move up to the middle math group. She put me in the top math group the last week of school. I was lost, but it was her way of helping me think beyond my admittedly modest successes.

Even after I completed sixth grade, Mrs. Smith continued to encourage me, now especially in reading, with phone calls and occasional visits to our home,. By the end of seventh grade I became an honor student, and completed high school as the salutatorian, the top math student, the top science student, the top orator of a class of 300, and with stellar SAT scores.

Mrs. Smith enabled me to become teacher’s pet rather than teacher’s pest. More importantly, she gave me a taste of the pleasure of success in work no one else thought I could achieve; she introduced me to the joy of accomplishment where I had known only failure; she pointed the way to the very peaks of scholarship and academic leadership by engaging my gifts and assisting others in engaging theirs.

…..

I am so thrilled with this engaging story of Raising Father. Please let me tell you one more factual parallel—this one of a retarded man who saved a whole town.

It was the worst rainstorm ever—ever in two centuries of scientific meteorological recording keeping. 35-inches of rain fell within a 24 hour period—more than has ever fallen in one day even on rainforests. In fact, the rain was so intense I could barely see past the front of my car. It took forever to go the short distance home.

I inched along, pulled the car up as close as possible to my porch, and bolted under cover. There was not much gain for my efforts. That 2-second exposure to this massive cloudburst completely drenched my clothes, right to the skin. And my shoes were overflowing. My garb could not have been more soaked if I had just stood out in this descending flood without any protection. The TV and radio weather prophets described this aftereffect of the devastating hurricane Camille as a monumental storm, but they did not foresee the full measure of this liquid onslaught.

Tom, my friend 26 miles up the James River, tucked his children in their beds and soon snuggled in bed with his wife Lillian, in a beautiful riverside town with the uniquely attractive name Lovingston. The pouring down rain quickly lulled them all into a sound sleep, all of them high above their soaking yard, in the family’s second floor bedrooms. Every family member remained sweetly oblivious to the eerie ecology surrounding their home and the rest of Lovingston. Little did they know that the nearly three feet of rain was accumulating—as it washed quickly down the little valleys, rivulets and stream-beds—ultimately to converge into the tranquil James River. Starting above lovely Lovingston, that tragic convergence created a monstrous 30-foot wave/wall of water (tsunami-like, but quite slow), lumbering down this historic, tranquil landscape.

Tom was startled conscious at 2:07 AM, only to witness the wave/wall of water crash through his and Lillian’s second floor bedroom windows. His body grabbed the headboard, and he unconsciously clung for dear life. He awoke miles down- stream, still clinging to his broken life-saver. Tom’s dear wife and children were slaughtered by Camille, as were hundreds of their neighbors.

…..

A short distance down the James River valley, a long freight train coming up from Richmond was snaking its way along the riverbank tracks, through Virginia’s pleasant Piedmont region, toward the towering Blue Ridge Mountain Range.

Glaring through the softening shower, Peter, the engineer could not believe what he saw: the brilliant headlight beam revealed ahead an engulfing 30-foot wave/wall of flooding water lumbering down the tracks toward him and his train.

Screaming for Jesus’ assistance, he instantaneously slammed the locomotive into reverse, full power, focused on saving himself and his crew, as well as the train and its cargo. In a moment, the train was barreling backwards down the tracks, racing with an increasing margin of safety—ahead of the voracious wave/wall. Through Schuyler, Howardsville and other little riverside communities it roared. These little towns would soon be inundated, but what could he do?

Peter breathed a sigh of relief and sadness. Now if only to get down toward Richmond where the valley widens and the deadly wave/wall would dissipate—and he, his small crew, the train, and the cargo would be safe.

But how could they protect anyone else? Could they arouse citizens of any community to run to safety? They could not really stop—and what could they do anyway? Who would believe them? What could they say? But yet, there was a responsibility to do something. Something!

Peter and his crew decided to slow down slightly. Now if they saw anyone in the remaining riverside villages and towns walking near the tracks in the drizzling rain, now at 2:20 in the morning, they were prepared to scream, There is a 30-foot wall of water coming down the valley. Tell everyone to run for safety.

Maybe he could help save someone, Peter thought. Perhaps a few people will be rescued. What else could they do?

Even then, would anyone understand the danger? Would they believe Peter? And what would they do? How would that person alert everyone else in that town or village?

In fact, as the train continued to barrel down the tracks toward Richmond, Peter seriously wondered what he would do if he saw a freight train, barreling backwards, at 2:20 AM, with some crazed engineer shouting out the window something both incomprehensible and insane, like There is a 30-foot wall of water coming down the valley! Even if he stopped the train and got out in order to argue the cogent case—to convince the person to act—it would probably then be too late, if it worked at all.

Any normal, rational person would be skeptical, and want some proof, before running around the village pounding on people’s doors, informing them of something so un-heard-of! What to do?

No time to think about it.

Barreling into the village of Scottsville, Peter could see that everything was quiet, no one was outside; no one braving the rain. But look! There is a tall man walking slowly near the tracks. Peter made himself ready. There’s a 30-foot wall of water comin’ down the valley! Tell everyone near the river to run for safety!"

Wow! That was all he could say, and Peter wondered if the man heard everything. Thoughts raced through his mind. Did the tall man understand anything? Did he believe anything Peter had shouted? Will he do anything about it? Peter looked back just before the train rounded the Horseshoe Bend, and again began picking up speed. He could see the tall man running away from the tracks. Can he rescue anyone? Is he clever enough? What will he do?

…..

Ol’ Charlie was the tall man slowly walking the streets with insomnia that night. Charlie was a retarded, illiterate, senior citizen. His speech was somewhat slurred; his voice often stammered; he blinked incessantly when he talked; his sentences were always simple, and he loved Jesus. What—is— Jesus—saying—today, Rev—rent—Paul? he would respectfully ask almost every time he saw me in church or on the street.

That disastrous night, Charlie heard clearly what Peter had shouted. Now, Charlie did not quite understand, but he believed. He believed, and immediately started running. He knew exactly what to do. Go one short block to the Scottsville Volunteer Fire Department, pull the siren lever, and tell the men exactly what he had just seen and heard.

In no time at all, there were more than four-dozen men, jarred awake by the familiar squeal of their fire department siren. The first men to arrive started sounding the truck sirens and horns, too. They implicitly believed Charlie because he had never ever lied to any of them. Never. Perhaps, his simple mind could not lie. These trusting men awakened the whole village and helped all the people get to higher ground safely.

Hundreds of Scottsville’s citizens were rescued. In Lovingston hundreds of people were killed instantly by the wave/wall. In Scottsville there was tremendous property damage in the range of millions of dollars but not one person was killed; not even one person was injured.

Charlie saved the village. Charlie had saved hundreds of people, and they were immensely grateful. A few years after hurricane Camille with its 35 inches of rain in Piedmont, Virginia, and the 30-foot wall/wave, I asked a group of twelve high school students to each list the six people they knew of—from their families or from places they had lived—that most clearly demonstrated God’s character. Even though these young people had not discussed the question, every one of them included Charlie in his or her list. Charlie had committed 100% of his ability to serve God and to help other people—and it showed.

Raising Father will raise awareness of great abilities, even where little have been recognized or expected. Other people will not look the same.

Paul de Vries, PhD

New York Divinity School

Prologue

It was tall and darkened by the shadows it cast over itself; deeply furrowed, it filled the circle at the end of the cul de sac. An imposing figure standing at the closed end of the lane as though guarding all under its gaze, the big Red Oak was as much a part of where he lived and who he was as the brick house in which he worked and slept. It was as much a part of who he was as we were. His house could only have been the brick one, though there were others for sale in the neighborhood when they came looking. The sight of it must have looked to him like so many of his paintings as he saw it from the street with the great Red Oak in the corner of his eye, which like his walk, pulled him gently left and forward. It was this unique quality that marked his work, as well, most everything about him, and which was viewed by art critics and admirers as creative genius and as something of an oddity by those who saw only his handicap when they looked into his wide eyes. They were fixtures on his face, along with a smile whose slightly parted lips seemed waiting in anticipation, unalterable as his gaze.

To Gaby and me the idea was an abstraction. The thought that this man, with an infinite store of love for life and those around him was odd seemed to us the handicap of another. He had the innocence of a child, which shielded him from the blows and complexities of life, and his habitual tracking bore only the persistence and nobility of an eagle that finds its nest high in the mountains. His way was the distribution of wealth, a flight from an errant fever, the warmth of a kitchen hearth. His way was the whisper that each of us longs to hear when confronted with decision, the right way to go, the path not taken by those with regret. From childhood to manhood his oddity had performed the miracle of giving in every way that a man hoped for, as though by an act of God his weakness became others’ strength. Raising father was the act of sitting at his knee calmly watching while the world churned in its furious blowing as a wind bent for destruction. Raising father was anything but the patient managing of the handicapped; it was life itself, in joyful practice.

As I took to writing this account much after the events told in it had occurred, the images of the years with him in the brick house at the end of the cul-de-sac were brought clearly to mind as though I were reliving them in that moment. They were good years, as were those that followed, and whose joy owed most to the brand he burned into my sister Gaby and me by his special bearing. Raising father was our life’s work, and its reward was the enduring honor and goodness in us that was his way.

Chapter One

The Cemetery

He sat beside a tree at a distance from where they laid her to his left, overlooking the expansive green lawns punctuated by stone markers, as though fingers reaching for the sky. I imagined him painting this scene, his mind considering only life in what others saw as death; the stones shaped with the bending, arching hands of desire for something better than they had known, for relief from the ardor of this day. It would be as it appeared here, as with all of his paintings. The view from the front gently tugged by what appears innocently in the left corner of the canvas. I wondered what object he would choose for that spot.

Dad, we can go now if you’re ready. His stare was blank, hardly allowing the interruption to refocus it. It was a knowing stare, apparent to us who had lived in his world, who had supped at his pallet of colors and countenances. He was not yet ready to move.

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