THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 18, 1995 TAG: 9506170277
SECTION: COMMENTARY PAGE: J3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ANN G. SJOERDSMA
LENGTH: Long : 118 lines
At 2 p.m. Friday, June 2, I unlocked the door to what was supposed to be a vacant rental cottage at the Outer Banks and discovered it was occupied. After calling out several times to the apparent ``guests,'' but not venturing into the house, I sensed a threatening presence and quickly left.
The next Monday, three young men were arrested in Elizabeth City on burglary charges - in part because of my efforts.
For two days I interviewed potential witnesses until I finally located a cashier at a nearby service station who had sold breakfast food to one of the youths and knew him by name. When the arrests were made, I felt relief and vindication.
I became involved in the case for rational and, perhaps, irrational reasons (e.g., feeling I had let the youths ``get away''), which can be traced, I think, to my father, a strong and intelligent man of conviction, honor and tenacity, a man who has had and can exercise power, temperately. With my caring mother, for whose complementary warmth and empathy I am grateful, my father taught me self-reliance and independence, logical thinking and faith in my principles, and the difference between ``right'' and ``wrong'' - a difference not always easily discerned.
A perfectionist, my father has always set high standards. Fortunately for me and my three siblings, he also knows how to laugh. We've needed that laughter through the years.
And yet, despite a lifetime of parental love and support, I now feel vulnerable, alone even when I know I'm not. Anxiety has interrupted my sleep, awakening me to check windows and doors, and my eating. I have refused to succumb to helplessness, but neither can I completely trust others to help me. Again, I know this has something to do with my father; yet reality, which has taught me the caution of being a single woman in a world so often dominated by indifference and brute force, also plays a part.
I am fighting a daily tension. In much the same way, I fight to speak out, to write and tell the ``truth'' as I see it, with reason and compassion, as my father has instructed. Like all writers, I intimately experience conflict, conflict that, sometimes paradoxically, can be traced to home.
Until I was 8 years old, I said very little to the ``outside world,'' preferring to spend time with my writer's imagination, my solitary dramatic play and my storybooks. It was at 8 that a child's injustice first touched my sheltered inner life, and my father's view of survival asserted itself.
Mrs. Ann Miller, who lived two houses down from mine, falsely accused me of harming her precious daughter, and my supposed friend, Pam, and then wouldn't believe me when I told her otherwise. The 9-year-old Pam had lied. In retaliation for this mother's unfair rejection, I tore up onion grass from her preciously tended lawn, leaving what I hoped were gaping holes, but probably doing little damage of consequence. (For some reason, I valued onion grass.)
My father praised my direct response and encouraged me to stand up for my rights. (Unbeknownst to me, he didn't care much for the persnickety Ann Miller.) Naturally, I wanted to please my all-knowing and powerful Dad. He taught me then about fighting injustice, doing ``battle'' when ``battle'' was required; but he neglected to explain away the fierce knot in my stomach. (Calm, introspective Mom never knew of my Miller attack.)
Now 70 and still quite active, my Dad grew up on an Illinois farm during the Depression, with the tough distinction of being the smartest kid for miles around. At age 5, he knew he wanted to be a doctor and he had the good fortune to be nurtured intellectually by a loving grandmother, who cultivated his mind while others were cultivating the fields. His own father taught him the value of work, which never seemed to cease.
A rough-and-tumble boy, Dad learned early that because he was smart, other kids would want to fight him. He never drew attention to his intelligence, but neither did he dodge a fight. (Dad knew to excel just enough in school to take the second, or better yet, the third seat in the classroom, but never the first.) He earned respect from his peers with his fists, until he was old enough that his peers didn't matter.
My Great Aunt Nettie, now 82, tells the story of Dad, at 13, delivering the 8th-grade commencement address and telling the audience that he was going to be a doctor. The assembled farm community, including Nettie, laughed: Few graduated high school then; even fewer imagined college, none went to medical school.
At 17, my father left home for an expedited education at the University of Chicago - World War II imposing urgency - where he earned a bachelor's and two advanced degrees. College, of course, transformed him, further opening his knowledge-hungry mind, giving him a forum for the exchange and debate of ideas, and reinforcing his principled and angry individualism.
When I think of my father, I think of his many poignant, life-defining stories. One from his university days greatly impressed me: To graduate medical school with Alpha Omega Alpha distinction, the equivalent of Phi Beta Kappa, he needed a high mark on his physiology final. He studied the subject assiduously, only to be presented with a true-false exam that didn't begin to test his knowledge. Dad finished this exercise in five minutes: He wrote ``true'' beside each question and disgustedly turned in his paper.
There is a fine line between self-destruction and supreme self-confidence, and my father has always skated it.
Dad went on to a very rewarding, challenging and, in many respects, ground-breaking medical research career that began at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md., took him all around the world, as he garnered international position, renown and reputation, and brought heady concerns and fascinating people to my dinner table. My name is in ``Who's Who'' because of my father's considerable accomplishments.
I am immensely proud of my father, as I know he is of me.
And yet, at near-midlife, I can't help but wonder, who am I that I rail, sometimes recklessly, against injustice, seek to right societal ``wrongs,'' even strive to solve crimes about which crime-solvers don't much care, and then suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous anxiety?
Today, on Father's Day, I celebrate the involvement of my father, a most remarkable man, in my being and my well-being, but I also question it. The lessons and stories of all fathers, those who are present and those absent, are many and complicated, and of lasting impression. I love my father dearly, seek out his wise counsel and enjoy his company, but I wonder if I sometimes lack the strength for my own fears and desires because his strength is so overwhelming, his confidence and demands so great.
My father is my hero, conflicts and all, even as I seek the heroism within myself. That is one of my truths.
- MEMO: Ann G. Sjoerdsma is book editor for The Virginian-Pilot and The
Ledger-Star. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Ann G. Sjoerdsma
by CNB