Feral

I just read the Post Secret site for Father's Day, and felt none of the old rage, not even sadness. I learned a word to describe him just this past year, and it healed up the last hole.

This quote from Carolyn Hax, whose advice column at the Washington Post provides consistent good sense. And the word Feral.

The most despicably selfish people are often, upon close inspection, feral--they're consumed by self-preservation, and don't have the courage to take the emotional risks that are the hallmark of civilized behavior.

This isn't to say that you should handle the feral without gloves. Sometimes the best thing to do is to have nothing to do with them.

Raised on a farm, mostly by his brothers, he survived. Yet he tried to look civilized: wife, children, house, job, church going - fearing Hell if not exactly believing in God. As a wild cat brought inside, well fed, clean, long lived - but always fearful, and not to be trusted. So like my friend Dave's cat Chance, brought in from behind a Taco Bell,who became Dave's cat. But not exactly tame, and certainly not domesticated. Not Chance's fault, just not in him to be a gentle, sociable lap cat.

It's a matter of chance, what kind of father any child gets, and whether he stays or goes - and which is better. Natural selection in humans favored an attentive mother, but the sort of father conferred no particular evolutionary advantage on us as a species. Kind uncles and brothers, and teachers, filled that role just as well.

Uncle Walt was one of my fathers, who I found out much later was not much of a father to his own children. I adored him, but never got to be around him for long, because my father was intensely jealous of his wife's beloved brother. And I had a flash of insight related to dog behaviour - resource guarding. I was my father's proof of status, belonged to him, owned by him, in his control. Stepping out of that circle meant barking, growling and biting from him. Not out of sheer meanness, but out of possession, fear of loss.

He didn't love me, as such. But neither was he capable of hating me, as such. A sire, not a father, but that's more usual than not.

I worked with KB, who grew up in Kurdistan. He says his father hit him, but he felt it was to teach him to survive in a dangerous situation, and he bore him no resentment, though he could not feel great affection for him either.

So, thanks Uncle Walt, Uncle Ernie, Bill, Mr. Esper, Mr. Novak, Mr. Shirkey, Ed, for fathering those around you, sometimes including this female child. Most are long gone, none will read here, but they laid the knowledge in me that character is not defined by gender. That men and women are equally capable of full humanity. That we can all protect and love each other, without needing to be biological relations.

We just have to be given half a chance when we are young, and we remember.