31. The Providers

People’ve always accused me of not being thankful. Maybe they’re right. Some—sometimes the same people—have said that I’m grateful when other people aren’t.

So will I ever change? About those things, probably not. The hormones haven’t affected me so; I doubt that the surgery will. But at least I can say that I don’t feel guilty over the ones who accuse me of not being thankful and I’m not going to exalt the ones who realize that I’m grateful.

I still think of Thanksgiving: a time when people are supposed to give thanks….for what? For the food on the table? And whom do people thank? God, or whomever they worship. The Almighty Father: That was one of the names God had when I was growing up. Why should they thank a father for giving them something to eat? What kind of father wouldn’t?

The ones on this block, that’s what kind. Actually, they don’t deny physical nourishment. My father didn’t. Like him, they disappear; sometimes they die: In any event, one way or another, they’re not there for the women or children. Even the ones who don’t go out for a pack of cigarettes and never come back usually fail to provide sustenance—as opposed to belly-filling—for their children and wives.

And everyone grows up starving—the women cluck and the children peep until they realize that it’s useless; it won’t fill, much less fulfill, them.

In TV, in the movies, there are families where the father stays and the children are nourished, body and spirit, and the woman lives under his wing: under its shadow and protection. And they’re all thankful to him, whether they’re saying grace or whether he’s paying admission to enter the various realms of fantasy.

And the fathers who lead their charges, their wards, their concubines in prayer—To whom do they give thanks? To whoever signs their paychecks—or gives a loan or a gift—so they can buy food? They never thank themselves for working as hard as they do. Someone always says it’s the fathers who work hard. No doubt many do. But we never get to see the women running, lifting, bending, scrubbing, cooking or exerting themselves in everyday tasks. So tell me, who provides what for whom in those families?

But what they never say—because they didn’t know , because whoever puts the words in their mouths didn’t—is that they aren’t thankful to their mother, the one who brings them into this world, because they can’t be. They can only be grateful for that, and for the other events over which they have no control. For example, someone who can actually help them, and does, may appear in their lives. For that they should be grateful.

Yes, I’m relieved, in a way, that I’m about to bury my mother. But of course, I’ll be grateful that she existed, even when I didn’t care whether I would the next day.