The Photo Of My Dad I Really Wish I Hadn't Taken
Photo Courtesy of AuthorWhen I was twenty-eight, I had been married barely six years and wasn’t sure my marriage would last as long as my parents' did.
In the summer of 1987, I helped my sister plan a party to celebrate our parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary. For my mother, it was a milestone. For me, it was a glimpse into a future I wasn’t sure I wanted.
My father was twenty-eight when he married my mother, days before her twenty-first birthday in August of 1947. Now, four decades later, Mom wanted to celebrate with a proper party.
So Kathleen and I made the calls, invited neighbors, friends, and relatives, and set up a gathering at our parents’ home. On the day of the party, Mom laid out her best tablecloths. Kathleen and I set up the seldom-used punch bowl next to the three-tiered cake.
Mom wore a fuchsia dress. Dad pinned a corsage Kathleen purchased next to the fake pearls around our mother’s neck. Our father put on his only suit and tie. Together, they looked as if they were headed to church.
My mother called it their “big day,” determined to make their anniversary look like something worth celebrating.
Through just one photo, I already knew looks could deceive
Photo from Author
Guests soon filled the house. My sister’s boyfriend, Jimmy, brought his aunt. I, on the other hand, felt the loneliness of my husband away at sea working. In the living room, the women gathered to sip tea under bold wallpaper covered in oversized flowers.
My children, Kimberly and Christian, took turns handing their grandmother the presents for her to open. Gifts of plates, cups, and saucers trimmed in gold, with ruby red roses. Items that would go in her China cabinet to join the many antique dishes already there. Things never used.
The men gathered in the dining room, where alcohol flowed freely. A yellow clothes dryer sat in the corner, bought years earlier so my mother wouldn’t have to hang laundry outside. But she preferred the smell of fresh air, so it was rarely used.
The walls were crowded with portraits of us as children and now with those of our children. Plaster galloping horses raced across the top of a doorway. Over the mantle loomed a picture of the Titanic as bleak as every meal around the table. Beneath it sat a black antique clock no one bothered to wind.
The telephone was next to the kitchen doorway, where it was easy for my mother to answer when it rang, and it rang often. Talking on the phone was where she spent most of her leisure time.
Despite the clutter, the house felt alive. I moved with my camera, determined to preserve what I thought might be a rare happy occasion.
The men sat shoulder to shoulder on the couch. My father sat on the floor in front of the silent TV, cigarette in hand, his body loose with drink, slipping into that drunken version of himself.
I knew how quickly my father's jolly mood could twist into rage. As Jimmy and his aunt prepared to leave, our father stood and swayed, smiling. He went over to Jimmy’s aunt and leaned in to say goodbye. I lifted my camera and clicked, capturing the photo I wish I hadn’t taken.
I knew where his hand was heading as I’d seen him do such things in the past. Something that could be dismissed as accidental. How dare he on his wife’s anniversary?
This was the photo I wish I had never taken:
Photo from Author
I said nothing, as I had so many times before. Confronting him was dangerous when he was drinking. I had done that in the past and knew it didn’t end well. He would try to grab me by the throat. I didn’t want to create a scene.
I wondered if my mother noticed, and if she did, she slipped into her familiar denial. She always had a reason for his behavior: his mother’s death when he was an infant, his constant back pain, and his inability to eat and gain weight.
My whole life, she’d painted him as someone to pity, someone whose behavior we must excuse. But as I stared at my father, I felt no pity. There were no excuses for what he’d done, drunk or not.
My mother might have called forty years of marriage a triumph, but I saw it differently.
That anniversary showed me what I never wanted: a life of denial, excuses, and silent endurance
Photo from Author
I wanted a future built on something more. I did not stay silent in my marriage. When something was wrong, I said it. I refused to build a life on what my mother had endured. I didn’t want to end up with a drunken husband by the time my fortieth anniversary rolled around.
My father died in June 1992, before my parents got to celebrate their forty-third anniversary. My mother lived for another twenty-four years. Looking at those photos now, I feel sad for the life they never had.
For my husband and me, our fortieth came and went in 2021. We celebrated the milestone quietly together. My husband and I have been married longer than my parents were.
It has not always been easy. But it’s been a marriage where silence wasn’t the price of staying.
Barbara Carter has been writing on Medium since 2022, sharing deeply personal stories about childhood trauma, anxiety, depression, alcohol addiction, and the journey toward healing and living an authentic life. She is currently working on her memoir series, Barbara by the Bay, a reflection on resilience, self-discovery, and the power of storytelling. Her earlier writing was published in Understorey Magazine. Memoir Magazine, Foliateoak.com, Fictitious Magazine, Enhance Literary and Art Magazine.
