Wistful thinking

Dr. Leo J. Scanlon Jr. M’52, Brandon, Miss., a physician; July 2, 1994.

That's a line on a University of Pennsylvania website above announcing my father's death. (He graduated from the Medical School there.)

It was 15 years ago that I got a call at 5:00 in the morning telling me he was suddenly and unexpectedly dead.

I've gone through a lot of emotions since I got that phone call but the overwhelming feeling was one of relief that he was gone, and I wouldn't have to endure his craziness again and neither would he have a chance to inflict it on my children.

I read articles about people being sad they weren't reconciled with abusive parents before they died but I think that's just wistful thinking. The parent hadn't changed by the time they died and as Bette Davis once said, death doesn't change anything so how can you be reconciled?

Here's a photo of my mother and father at their wedding rehearsal, the night before they said their vows. How emotional this picture makes me feel. There's my mother, about to make the worst mistake of her life, and I can't stop her. She has no idea of the hell she is about to enter. If only I could have been around to advise her, as silly as that sounds.


I'm always reminded of the Delmore Schwartz story, In Dreams Begin Responsibilities, where the main character watches a movie of his parents' courtship and shouts at the screen, trying to stop them from marrying. (Thanks to Michigan Mom for telling me about this book in college.)

Here's a snippet:

I think it is the year 1909. I feel as if I were in a motion picture theatre, the long arm of light crossing the darkness and spinning, my eyes fixed on the screen. This is a silent picture as if an old Biograph one, in which the actors are dressed in ridiculously old-fashioned clothes, and one flash succeeds another with sudden jumps....then he asks my mother to marry him...and she, to make the whole business worse, begins to cry and says, "It's all I've wanted from the moment I met you."...

I stood up in the theatre and shouted: "Don't do it. It's not too late to change your minds both of you. Nothing good will come of it, only remorse, hatred and scandal."
...
I shut my eyes because I could not bear to see what was happening.