Daddy Lost

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Daddy Lost

“Papa, please get the moon for me.”

--Eric Carle.

In 1954,

when I was ten, 

a fifth grader attending

my 7th elementary school,

I was watching

THE HIT PARADE

on our 13” B&W TV--

Eddie Fisher was hosting,

Coca Cola was the sponsor.

He sang his #1 hit,

OH! MY PAPA,

& every time I heard the song

I was reduced to inexplicable tears;

perhaps it was the poignant trumpet solo,

or maybe the saccharine lyrics:

                Oh, my Papa;

                to me he was so wonderful,

                                       so good,

                                       so funny,

                                       so adorable,

                                       so gentle,

                                       so lovable.

Damn, somehow this song highlighted a

mysterious loss in my life, the lyrics vibrated

like cello strings, & emotions exploded.

My mother’s first husband, my “father”, was a

liar, a wife beater who cheated on her routinely.

Her second husband was a pedophile, who had

molested neighborhood children.

Her third husband was a handsome felon, who 

rode a motorcycle, drove hot rods, & had potential

for fatherhood, before he started molesting my

sister & beating my mother.

So the song was a trigger, & my adolescent

instincts became a voice that announced I had

no father, just a succession of stepfathers. Oh,

how I missed this lost phantom father that my

mother never mentioned. Years later my odd

suspicions  were confirmed, & I had to own them.

Papa was not a

term I ever embraced, for

it was a ghost’s name.

Glenn Buttkus

Posted over at dVerse Poets Pub