It is the first taste of
summer, the first Friday of June, when the sun and wind are in perfect tune. It
is the eve of my 50th birthday and the start of our 50th
year in business. We are together again, just as we often are. My father sits
on the front porch of our office in his classic white, high-backed rocking
chair, too afraid to rock, and I stand beside him, too uncomfortable to sit.
The depth of our conversations is narrowing.
He wants to talk shop and I want him to realize just how
fortunate he is. How, at the age of 84, his ailments are minuscule
compared to his quick sinking circle of friends. He clings to his independence - his stubborn, thick Irish
temperament - while I patiently wait for him to need me just as I have always
needed him. I wait for his
Parkinson’s disease to slow him down enough for us to get to know each
other. I want to understand what
fuels him, what haunts him, and what his regrets are.
“I started this business the
year you were born,” he boasts.
“Yes, I know Dad.” I put my
hand on his shoulder and he bristles, then shoots me a disapproving glare. My
father does not like being touched.
I have no memory of him reaching out to me, holding my hand or wrapping
his arms around me. Lifting me up
into a limitless sky the way Daddy’s often do. Twirling me around and around. Smiling, just for me.
Believing in me.
To avoid his sign of
disapproval, I turn and look away.
I look across the street, past the towering juniper tree that guards the
unpretentious two-family house that my father bought back in the early 80’s. He
lives here now, in the first floor apartment, because he can no longer climb
stairs. This is the same house I raised my son, Kerry, in and where he would
return, years later, to raise his son.
I look across the street, to
the same two-family house where, 7 years ago, I found my son. Lifeless.
I look past the roofline, the
green-shingled roofline. I look
past the chimney top and tips of neighboring homes. I look past the limitless sky - upward, onward, closer to my
son. I look for clarity, conviction, and guidance.
“Fifty years, fifty YEARS” my
father groans, “Where did the time go.”
He founded Kennedy
Security Services long before there was such a thing as no-fault divorce.
With a cocked camera, pencil and pad at his side, he spent years shadowing adulterers
– trailing unsuspecting husbands and less-than-perfect wives. Primed in high school as
a track and football star, he carried his competitive nature with him.
He drank and ate more than his share - balancing it all with a plethora of
women.
He ran with the best of them:
affluent lawyers, doctors, politicians and businessmen. He was free spirited,
gregarious and fun -- a welcome relief from the stiff shirts his white-collar
friends encountered on a regular basis.
When they offered him a
referral he took it. When they opened a door he walked swiftly through it. When
they spoke of impending change, he listened. Hard.
“Dad, what made you want to
start a security company?” I ask.
He laughs.
“Dad, why security? Why not be
a cop?”
He laughs harder.
I push harder.
“Dad, tell me what to tell
your grandchildren and your great grandchildren. Tell me what motivated you, what made you who you are. Tell me why you never stopped. Tell me
why you were always such a hard ass!”
I pushed too hard. His eyes point downward, his head
slumps forward, his mouth opens and he sighs. Two deep breaths later, he is fast asleep.
By the mid 60’s Greenwich,
Connecticut, catapulted from a quaint, coastal New England community, into a
city overflowing with opulence and opportunity. To match the demographics, he
restructured the company into a full-scale, private security agency specializing
in uniformed guard services for high-profile corporations, grand scaled events,
and lavish homes.
But Greenwich is not where I
grew up. My parents divorced when
I was two years old; I have no memory of them being together.
When I asked my mother why, she’d
tell me that my father had an explosive temper, that he was loud, impatient,
and uncouth, and that us kids made
him nervous.
She told us about the time he
came home early, and angry, and how my sister Colleen climbed into the attic to
escape his fury -- screaming that ants were crawling all over her, when
there were no ants in sight.
We left Greenwich in the dead
of night. Mom packed everything she wanted, including a parakeet and us two
kids, into a 1960’s Studebaker she nicknamed Betsy, and we headed to a small
town in northeastern Pennsylvania.
Surrounded in rural
simplicity, we settled into an old country farmhouse on a dead end street that
butted up to a wooded hill we kids called Snake Mountain. Our yard
included overgrown apple trees and a badly weathered barn with an attached,
two-car garage.
A few blocks away lived Mom’s
aunt and uncle, both of her brothers, their happily married wives, and a brood
of cousins. Their cohesive
welcoming added calmness to our disjointed lives. But despite their efforts, it
was obvious that our family was not intact. And I, the only one with dark hair,
stood out as a constant reminder of my father.
“If you wrap a towel around
their head you can’t tell them apart,” my mother would say when asked which one
of us kids was Colleen and which was Shannon. “They’re only 15 months apart -
practically Irish twins.”
The only other one with hair
my shade was Aunt Pauline and Uncle Zibe’s forever roaming mutt, a rat terrier
mix that folks called by his full name, Blacky Martin. Blacky Martin was
known for breaking into people’s houses and impregnating their purebreds. Every
dog in the neighborhood looked a little bit like him and, like me, he was
fiercely independent, stubborn, and unruly.
I remember passing Blacky
Martin as I wandered down the hill to an old feed store in the center of town.
In the back was a large barn where they stored bundles of hay. They would stack
them one on top of the other, creating mounds of soft cushion, perfect for
jumping. I would leap from one bail to the next. Sometimes I’d jump so high, I
was convinced I could fly. Everything about this place made me happy.
Occasionally I would steel
salt licks and handfuls of hay -- things I would need to feed the pony I was
determined to get. I even had a name for him: Chester.
After receiving a
satisfactory report card, I dialed my father, stretched the cord of our harvest-gold
wall-mounted kitchen phone to the far end corner of our pantry, cupped the
receiver with both hands so no one could hear me, and begged for my faithful
foal.
I didn’t know much, but I knew
I was my father’s favorite. I was his “Black Irish,” and my pleading was
impossible to resist. My father’s YES was no sooner celebrated than it was
squished.
“Absolutely NOT,” yelled
Mother. If it were not for her, I
believed, I’d have had everything I wanted – a pony and a father.
Mother may have been the boss
of me, but she could not control me.
I was, and still am, a dreamer.
My dreams would take me anywhere I wanted to go. In the world of my
imagination, I spent my days riding Chester across golden wheat fields that
blanketed the crest of Snake Mountain.
Then, I would sneak him down densely wooded, serpentine trails, and into
our barn in the dead of night. I’d feed him apples; watch his long, scratchy
tongue lap the salt licks. I brushed his sleek, dark, mane. Chester was my
favorite thing in the world, next to my father.
All was well until I started
telling the kids at school about Chester.
Camille was new to the
neighborhood. She moved to
Shavertown, Pennsylvania from Connecticut - the same state my father lived in.
Her clothes were cooler than mine. Her house was newer and neater than mine. I
wanted her to like me, so I invited her over for a ride on Chester.
Standing inside our dilapidated
barn, I explained, “Chester’s not here right now, but this is his stall, he
sleeps here. And this is his hay,
and these are his salt lick. He really likes his salt lick.”
“Where did he go?” she asked.
“He’s off gallivanting,” I told
her.
Gallivanting is a term my mother used often when she
spoke of my father, and it sounded like so much fun to me.
Sometimes, when I missed my
father the most, I’d sneak out of my bedroom, down our slippery, uncarpeted
staircase, out the back door and into the barn. There, snuggled in ever-growing
mounds of hay, I’d drift off to sleep.
“Wake up Dad,” I shout. I put my hand back on his shoulder and
a shake him, gently at first. When
he does not stir I shake him harder. “Wake up old man,” I demand.
He hates being thought of as
an “old man” and I am pleased to know that I can still get under his skin.
He blinks twice and then
bounces right back into his favorite topic – the good old days.
“Our office used to be on Greenwich Avenue. Right where the
Ralph Lauren store is going,” he reminds me. “They picked it up and moved it
here back in the 50’s.”
In the late 70s, my father
moved his understated office above a string of trendy shops on West Putnam
Avenue into a house owned by the family of a close friend - a local lawyer who
went on to become the first selectman of Greenwich. The even side of the street
is business zoned, allowing him to transform this colonial revival into a
comfortable work and living space.
“Will you look at that,” he
says as he points to the ornate black iron railing wrapped around the second
tier balcony of our newly constructed neighbor. – a 5300 square foot,
federalist-styled brick town house stuffed into a ¼ acre lot. It’s perimeter
brick wall butts exactly 8 feet from our foundation. “THAT is gaudy!” he adds.
It’s “urban sophistication,”
I tell him.
“Well, I think its shit,” he
contends.
Because we are located in the
heart of downtown Greenwich, 40 minutes outside of New York City and within
walking distance to the train and Long Island Sound, our address is in high
demand.
“No need for a car,” my father will tell you. School,
library, church, grocery store, drug store, restaurants and boutiques - everything
is in close range.
You’ll hear the locals
complain a lot about how much the town has changed yet its upscale essence
remains. A community infused with wealth, culture, and charm. A population of
60,000 thrive here along with one hundred of Connecticut’s largest
corporations. Museums, a symphony, polo grounds, and marinas interlace
with 8,000 acres of protected land - including 32 miles of coast, 20
parks, four beaches and a municipal golf course.
“They should have NEVER made
the Avenue one way,” growls my father, “and you can’t get a decent hot dog, let
alone a burger now that Finch’s is out of business.”
My father wore many hats
before he struck it big. One of his favorites was “soda jerk” at the food
counter in Finch’s Drug Store. It’s been 20 years since Mom and Pop stores ran
the Avenue, trampled by trendy trademarks such as, Kate Spade, Baccarat, Tumi,
and Tiffany. If it’s a $5,000 vase you’re looking for I can easily point
you in the right directions these days, but nowhere can you find a needle and
thread.
The average net worth per
person is 430 thousand, the typical home costs an estimated 2.4 million, and
the combined real estate value exceeds 50 billion. Dubbed the “Hedge-fund
Capital of the World,” it is easy to see why the affluent flock here.
“You can work three jobs if
you want,” he’ll tell you, “You’ll never go hungry here.” This is his way of
keeping us grounded.
“Dad, what made you come to
the office the day Kerry died?” I ask.
It was Memorial Day, my
father was celebrating the beginning of summer over dinner with friends when he
sensed an urgency to go to the office. He walked in not knowing what he would
find just as I did not know what I would find when I walked into my son’s
house, 30 minutes earlier. But
unlike my father, I had no hint of the devastation that hid behind the door.
“I don’t know Shannon. I
couldn’t eat, my stomach hurt. I knew something was wrong.”
My father has always been instinctually
aware of looming work related problems but I had never witnessed this on a
personal level.
After discovering my son’s
cold gray, lifeless body in the two-family home where he lived, his eyes locked
open and upward, I fled in horror and in disbelieve. I ran down the stairs and out the front door. I ran past the
towering juniper tree, across the street, and back to our office. I ran without looking. I ran hoping oncoming traffic would hit
me, and kill me, so that I could follow my son.
I reached the office in a
panic, grabbed the phone off my fathers desk and collapsed on the floor, in a
fetal position, where I rocked and screamed for a very long time. I wanted my
father, I needed my father, but I could not dial the phone. I could not focus
through my tears. I could not form
words. I could not comprehend a world without my son.
My screaming triggered an
involuntary reflex of urination. My skirt was wet, the carpet beside my fathers
desk was wet. My screaming also
caused a bulge, a hernia, to form in the pit of my stomach, just below my
ribcage. I would moan and massage this mass for days, months and years
following Kerry’s death. I reach
for it still.
A neighbor heard my cry and
called the police. Two squad cars
arrived at the same time as my father.
“I killed my son” were the only words I could speak.
“He was mad at me when he
died, Dad” I remind him.
The last thing I said to my
son was “get your act together” and this outraged him. Less than an hour later, he was dead.
“It’s not your fault,” my
father reminds me.
“Today, I know that’s true
Dad. But back then I blamed myself
just as I blamed you. I pushed him hard, just as you pushed me.”
Guilt, blame and shame is
what I wore when I began my journey through grief. I search hard and long for answers. I search in places I
never thought I’d go. Today, 7 years into my journey and 50 years into my life,
I realize that Kerry’s death has taught me many things, mainly how to
live.
