Choyce Lesley - The Nova Scotia Book of Fathers

Edited by
Lesley Choyce and Julia Swan

Pottersfield Press, Lawrencetown Beach, Nova Scotia, Canada

Copyright Pottersfield Press 2017

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used or stored in any form or by any means graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or by any information storage or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any requests for photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems shall be directed in writing to the publisher or to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (www.AccessCopyright.ca). This also applies to classroom use.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

The Nova Scotia book of fathers/Lesley Choyce, Julia Swan, editors.

ISBN 978-1-988286-00-6 (paperback)

ISBN EPUB 978-1-98826-08-2

1. Fathers--Anecdotes. 2. Fathers. 3. Father and child--Anecdotes. 4. Father and child. I. Choyce, Lesley, 1951-, editor II. Swan, Julia, 1955-, editor

HQ756.N68 2017 306.8742 C2016-906886-2

Cover design: Gail LeBlanc

Pottersfield Press acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada for our publishing activities. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. We are pleased to work in partnership with the Province of Nova Scotia to develop and promote our creative industries for the benefit of all Nova Scotians.

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Lesley Choyce

A few weeks after my own father died in December of 2014, I decided to write a personal remembrance of him and meant to share it only with friends and family. But the writing of the piece stirred something deep within me. Putting my memories and his death into words made me suddenly realize that he was truly gone. My mom had died just about a year previous to that and here I was, a fully grown man who had been raised by two great parents, but had now become an orphan.

I wrote about the loss, but also about the man my father was and the great gifts he had bestowed upon me life lessons, stories, time shared together. He left this world after ninety-three years. He had been a boy during the Depression and seen hard times, he had worked as a farm labourer as a teenager, he had been a soldier in World War II, and he had come back home and worked hard physical labour as a truck mechanic until retirement. And he had settled into a wonderful retirement routine with his wife for several decades of travelling, gardening, and sharing life with his family.

What I wrote about him was not a eulogy but a celebration. I realized that there was something universal about my story and my version of recounting his life. So I decided to share it beyond the scope of family and friends. It appeared in The Chronicle Herald on January 17, 2015, and was posted online. It triggered a surprising number of heartwarming responses from readers near and far.

Obviously, our personalities, our beliefs, our decisions, and our moral codes are greatly shaped by our parents often more so than wed like to admit. My father had somehow imbedded in me a way of seeing the world that still shapes the way I go through my daily life. As a teenager and a young (angry and independent) man, I had rebelled against so much of the culture I had grown up in. But, oddly enough, I was never really rebelling against my parents.

My mother and father were shaped by the times they had grown up in: years of poverty, war, recovery, and to a degree, conformity. They had strong but liberal religious beliefs. My own formative years were the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s. If ever there was a time to rebel, those were the decades for it. My father was truly working class and not a highly educated man: he had not completed high school. His lessons to me were mostly non-verbal. He may have verbally instructed me as a child in the older beliefs he had grown up with, but by the time my rebellious teen years were upon me, he accepted my long hair, my hitchhiking, my rants against government, and doubts about religion. He remained accepting of the new me and his lessons continued as they always had since I was a tiny boy living in a trailer with two young (and in their own way) idealistic parents. The lessons were all about humility, fairness, kindness, compassion, self-reliance, honesty, generosity, and loyalty.

Im sure the list is longer than that but those were some of the big-ticket items my father gave to me.

So, as I grew to accept the death of my parents, and continued on with what I do in the scenario that is my life as a parent, husband, writer, teacher, publisher, I decided that I wanted to do something a bit more for my father and his humble but brilliant legacy. If my small article had touched such a personal chord for so many people, I should ask others to share their stories of their fathers.

I would keep it focused to the place where I live and invite the writers I admired to submit whatever version of a father story they wanted to. The anthology would span generations and not necessarily be about the loss of fathers although it is that very loss that often triggers us to finally sit down and try to sum up the meaning of the man who raised you.

And you may think it odd that this is The Nova Scotia Book of Fathers, whereas my own father was not from here. But he was in many ways the reason I immigrated here and remained here to raise my children and create a fulfilling life. The Nova Scotia I love embodies so many of the values that he represented and it is filled with many of the things he loved.

My father was always a hard worker and a rural man at heart. And having shared my fathers story with the province, I wanted to hear back from others about their fathers. So I solicited stories from a range of this provinces finest writers and many welcomed the opportunity. Some were daunted by the task for fear they may not do their parent justice. Others had been meaning to do just this, write down the personal story, but had found the task difficult, emotional, and challenging.

But the end result is before you and many of the stories are probably not what youd expect. Each one is different and each one adds another dimension to the great human story of fatherhood. These authors welcome you into their lives by sharing something that is at once the most private of literary offerings but also the most universal.

Lesley Choyce

Lawrencetown Beach

Nova Scotia

July 13, 2016

Julia Swan

When Lesley asked me to contribute to the anthology he was planning on Nova Scotia fathers, my dad was in failing health, although my family didnt know just how little time was left to him. When I began editing the collection, my father had passed away and I was am still coming to grips with the reality of a world without him in it. I have cried a fair bit while reading these pieces about fathers from some of Nova Scotias best writers. Ive been touched by the deep wells of emotion they have offered all of us in the stories they have related about their fathers.