don't do it...

don't say that my father looks like his brother. even though he does.

For nearly my entire life, my father had quite a substantial mustache. However, on a whim, he decided to shave it off. This was a shock because I never saw what lived under this famous mustache (it won a contest and everything) and I finally saw the physical resemblance between my father and my uncle. He didn't seem to like that statement, but, as one could expect, brothers tend to look alike...just don't tell him that.

did you hear that?

don't expect to get through an entire movie quietly. he is sure to ask questions, state what just happened, or check to make sure you are aware of what happened.

Again, movies. Always a treat. My father wasn't always a sit-down movie-watcher. I really depended on the movie. Sometimes he wouldn't actually peak interest until 30 minutes into the movie, which was really great because the remainder of the movie he would be asking who this was or that or why this person was doing that (needless to say, most of this is explained in the first 30 minutes of the movie). Or, if the movie was meant to be mysterious from the beginning, the first 30 minutes are spent asking who is this, why that, which the response would always be: you'll find out. Sometimes he didn't, because he would get up in the middle to do something else and come back at the end with another slew of questions.
Another thing he did was while he was slapping your knee because he found a line so funny, he is also asking if you heard that. Did you catch that? Did you see that? Meanwhile, you're missing anything that happened after that brilliant line, as is he, and then will be asked why this because he missed the next five seconds.

however, don't make noise during a movie. you will be shushed or told to listen.

My father apparently was the only one allowed to talk during a movie. If he was into it, and you asked, "Pass the popcorn," you were immediately give a short shh or my father would grunt out "listen". That's not to say that my father was mean about it. You just had to pick your spots. Conversation was saved for points of the movie that my father lost interest and got up and left; requests were reserved for my father's fits of laughter, knee-slapping, and elbow grabbing. Naturally, this narrows down the movie categories to comedies. Watching a serious movie that requires you to follow the story, such as Taken or Inception, requires silence and patience because he will ask you if you are following what is going on, or ask, "What just happened?"

which knee?

never sit next to my father while watching a comedic movie or tv show. you are bound to get bruises.


This might be a slight exaggeration. However I do use the word slight. Sitting next to my father watching comedies was always a joy. It was infectious. I do not mean the comedy in the movie but the comedy in my father. His laugh was terrific and anyone who knew his laugh could say the same. I actually have friends that loved to watch movies with my father for the sole purpose of watching him instead. But...there was this 'habit' that my father developed when we laughed so hard. We know the addage, "that's a knee-slapper", where you laugh so hard you slap your own knew. Well, my father took to slapping other people's knees. He also would grab elbows, give strong nudges, and the like to make sure that you saw or heard what happened and understood how funny it was. Another word to the wise could be: never hold a beverage while watching a movie with my father.

what this project is:

In late July of 2012 I began to list characteristics, quirks, and necessary elements of my father's life. My father was a suicide in January of 2010, after which, I began to read and research what I could about suicide: how to deal, what it is, etc. I found Joan Wickersham's book The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order published in 2008, 15 years after her own father's suicide. The quote above is from her book which I read after starting the project, but found to be a profound push to continue listing. The quote in it's entirity is this:
"I am going to try to reconstruct who he was, because I'm not sure anymore.
Suicide destroys memory.
It undercuts one of our most romantic, and most comforting notions: that we don't really die when we die, because we live on in the memories of those who love us.
When killing yourself, you're killing every memory everyone has of you. You're taking yourself away permanently and removing all traces that you were ever here in the first place, wiping away every fingerpring you ever left on anything.
You're saying, 'I'm gone, and you can't even be sure who it is that's gone, because you never knew me.'

So what did I know about my father really?"
- Joan Wickersham p. 158 The Suicide Index

The purpose of this blog is to list one or several from the list of rules about my father each day and provide explanation of each. This blog is for those who see the work on my website - www.caitlinpeck.com -  and are curious to learn more. Or for those who want to grasp an understanding of creating a portrait of a person through the power of words.