About Daddy (5)

As I mentioned earlier, Daddy could be super charming at times and was quite generous for most of his life. In the sense of charming, he could practically ‘knock people off their feet’. He could also be obstinate, hurtful and bellicose.
I was majoring in business administration in college. The general idea was for me to graduate with my real estate major and work as a broker with Daddy all of my life, just as my two brothers would also work with him. The family on the TV show, ‘Bonanza’, was the model for us, only they had no mother and we had a very dear one, luckily. After completing my second year in college, I had to do some soul-searching. Did I really want to work side-by-side with Daddy all of my life? Did I want to take the hurt he had to throw off onto others from time to time? Didn’t I have a great interest in writing and literature and literary fame and money from that source? Was it better to work in an area or a field of my high interest or to work for just money? I’ve never been the sacrificing type (or so I think), so, I chose to change my major in mid-academic career to English literature. One factor, also, was that I knew Daddy was weak when it came to managing money wisely. (He said many times that he could manage it—manage to spend it!) I thought how awful it would be to work all of my life just for the accumulation of some money and then, for whatever reasons, end up with barely a nickel. I’d seen it happen with my own eyes more than once. That would be sad. Of course, I’ve ended up too modestly as it is, but at least I’ve enjoyed and still enjoy my working life. That satisfaction has to represent some value I think.
Daddy and I weren’t so close in a supportive sense (one morally supporting the other like troops, for example), so, I think my decision to change majors didn’t affect him intensely. Besides, he could plan on working with my two brothers for most of their lives, as it would turn out. They seemed to have a greater kinship also.
When graduation from university neared, I married, not really knowing at the time that I would never live permanently near my parents again, though we remained close and in frequent contact the rest of their lives. To be fair, I have to mention that there were times in which one or the other of us five offspring fell short of money and that Daddy never once said no, that he couldn’t send any money whenever he knew it was truly needed. Of course, he was earning quite well at those times.
For some reason before he died, he said to one of us that he wasn’t put on this earth to be taken care of by his kids but, rather, to take care of his kids. Regardless of why he said it, that’s about the way it turned out. Sadly, I sometimes think when I find myself wishing I could have done some significant thing for him in a monetary sense.