He ended up with two daughters, eldest I was treated as a tomboy, groomed and encouraged to be a scientist, which I became. He was a low-level BS chemist at DuPont, across the river from his home town. There exposed to likely analine dyes which promoted bladder cancer later. WWII happened, he was not drafted bu sent to a munitions manufactory in Indiana where he met and married my mother. There he got TB (workplace exposure) and spent a decade getting well and being encouraged to leave chemistry got a doctorate in history and became a faculty member at three universities. He was a great but hard-grading professor. No-nonsense. That's how he approached his two daughters. No-nonsense, somewhat remote, a smoldering depressive. But he had loves which my sister and I (more me) were taught. First he instructed us both to learn a career, to be self-sufficient. Lectures on that. He loves ships and airplanes and military and we were taught to recognize airplane models in the sky. He read a lot. So do we. Suck up information, I got that from him, my mother was more into nature things like butterfly and rock collections.

My kids father died 6 years ago. Different relationships with boy v girl. Very nuanced remoteness. We talk around their feelings, memories pop up in conversation, sometimes with tears (daughter and me). It will be their memories, not mine.

My daughter is married to a man whose father shot himself to death when he was young. I suspect that they had a connection re: missing fathers. Happy Fathers Day, also Juneteenth.

edit for misspelling. I won't tell you where.

my father came home one evening and said, "your teacher says you daydream in class too much. You need to stop that and pay attention." He was the superintendent of schools, so I got reported on, on a regular basis. I actually wondered, what does that mean, daydreaming. I really had no idea it meant I was lost in my own thoughts instead of the teachers wisdom. I'm a daydreamer to this day - my small act of rebellion - I loved your poem.