Is My Father's Death a Family Curse?
Commentator Elissa Ely recalls that when she was her daughter's age, her father died. She wonders if it is a family curse, and if her daughter will lose her father around the same time.
ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
Commentator Elissa Ely's daughter is getting older, and she's approaching an age that has real significance in their family.
ELISSA ELY:
My little girl is eight now, and indestructible as far as she's concerned. By her happy logic, we are also indestructible. She takes our presence for granted and has no cause for doubt. Her father takes steps, as many as he can by effort alone, to ensure she won't have to worry. He exercises, controls his diet when it occurs to him, and tries to think the kind of pleasant thoughts that ward off hypertension.
I know, though, that it's all a question of luck. I know this because I was two years younger than Rebecca is now when my father died. Ever since she was born, I felt terror and curiosity about what would happen when she turned six. I wondered if there was a family curse. It was like the bells tolling midnight at the ball, or Aurora's encounter with the spinning-wheel spindle.
I started to count when she turned five and a half. I couldn't help myself. One, two, three months passed. Her father was hale and hearty. They bickered over television, fought for the last piece of pie and competed fiercely at Go Fish. He walked her to school and fell to the floor at her jokes. He kissed her with his morning beard and she rebuffed him because he was so much to be taken for granted.
Six months passed. The clock struck midnight. It was time. In my life, the rules of the safe universe flew out the window when it was time. Seven months passed, eight. It was past time. Nine months passed, and her father still refused to let her have a single head start when they raced. Why should he? They would be racing together for decades. When I realized this, the rules of the universe flew out the window again.
My little girl and her father have each other in real time, not just family memory. History rewrote itself. Of course, this has only happened because of blessed luck. But her blessed luck has given mine back to me.
SIEGEL: Elissa Ely is a psychiatrist. She practices in Boston.
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