MEMORIES OF MY FATHER

by Alison Hammer Winans

My father once said to my godmother, “I have to be mother as well as father to the girls.” I was nine; Liz was seven, and my mother, an ailing, dependant wife. We lived on the seminary campus where he taught, so he was home more than most fathers. Naturally he was my favorite parent. His parents were Jews from Eastern Europe, who had for various reasons become Christian. Taking after his father, he was clean shaven and handsome with brown eyes and dark brown, wavy hair combed back from his high forehead. He dressed conventionally in grey, navy or black suits, black shirts with a white “dog collar” or his long, black cassock, but due to weight fluctuations his clothes often fit badly. Being short, stocky and slightly tubby round the waist, his love of eating fine food, cooking and feeding others was evident. He nurtured us with simple, nutritious food as well as his creative specialties—sukiyaki, fried rice and sweet & sour pork.

I could tell he was brainy by his perfectly egg-shaped head. I idolized him, wanting to grow up to be like him, recognized in a field of study. He was an Anglican missionary and an academic, well versed in classics and general knowledge, an authority on church history and the Bible. With a string of titles and degrees, he was the Rev. Canon Dr. R. J. Hammer. He took us to churches to hear him preach, impatiently driving like a speed demon to arrive early, then hurrying us along the sidewalk, our short legs moving overtime to keep up with his fast pace. During the cold weather he kept our small hands warm by holding them inside his pockets. After the service I watched him warmly greeting the congregants, with a pat on the shoulder, a gentle clasp of the hand or a brief hug, and talking, talking, talking. He loved being with people. Other times his work took him away, but he wrote letters and postcards, and returned bearing gifts.

My father must have grown up in the era when children were to be seen and not heard, and brought some of that into my upbringing. One time when I was six, he told me to lie down on my stomach to get rid of a stomachache. When I felt better, he said, “That’s because you were a good girl and did what you were told.” As well as being the dispenser of hugs and bedtime stories, he was the disciplinarian and must have spanked us, not unusual in the 50s and 60s, although I have no such memories. However I know it, because all he had to do, for us to immediately freeze and turn into good girls was to raise his hand suddenly.

During my university years, I came home briefly for Christmas. He kept producing treats from the kitchen, like hot mince pies or liver pate with crackers. Joking with my friends, I fondly called him my Jewish mother. Eating must have been his only pleasure. The times when he approached my mother with a tender touch or a kiss on the cheek, only to be pushed away, are burned in my memory. Utterly loyal, he stayed in what had clearly become an unfulfilling marriage. He did everything for her, taking extra jobs and working continuously to provide for her after his death. I suspect he also took on traveling engagements in order to get away, to have his own life, to be appreciated, to have others cook for him. Wondering how it was when they were young and in love, I asked her about the early days of their marriage. She simply said, “He wanted me to sit at his feet and worship him.”

I saw him caring for others too. Approached by beggars, he bought them food saying, “If I gave him money, he’d go and buy alcohol.” Secure in the truth of his own faith, he respected people of other faiths, and became active in interfaith networks. And a few years before he died, although recovering from surgery, he made the rounds of the hospital ward in his pajamas giving a blessing to all the other men.

At our last disastrous Christmas meal together, my mother fled to her bedroom, Liz and I were both in tears, while my exhausted father pleaded, “Come on now. Eat your dinner.” I was tired of his voice of authority lecturing me. Even when he asked me what I thought, he didn’t seem to hear me. So I escaped, at the age of 25, to make my own life many thousands of miles away, but I still had to put up with his disappointments. When I started my successful housecleaning business in California, he said, “I thought you were going to help people. Do any of your friends have proper jobs?” But I knew he loved me no matter what I got into. He always had time to scribble a letter to me in handwriting that looked like brain waves, regular with little blips, and occasionally sent $20 bills saying, “Don’t tell Mummy.”

In his later years he looked like an eccentric professor with wild grey hair down to his collar, fraying cuffs and baggy pants held up with string. Being so busy, he did not have the time or energy for self-care. On Christmas Day 1993, during our last phone call I said, “I really want to see you at Easter, to spend quality time with both of you.” He died three weeks later, having kept the extent of his heart disease a secret from us.