The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me by Bruce Feiler

Author:Bruce Feiler [Feiler, Bruce]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: General, Biography & Autobiography, Family relationships, Family & Relationships, Health & Fitness, Medical, Biography, Personal Memoirs, New York, Diseases, Patients, Cancer, Parenting, Fatherhood, Children of cancer patients, Father figures, Bones, Feiler; Bruce S - Health, Bones - Cancer - Patients - New York
ISBN: 9780061778766
Publisher: William Morrow
Published: 2010-11-15T05:00:00+00:00

THIS IS WHAT BEN Edwards wrote in my second-grade yearbook:

Bruce, Have a happy safe summer! I might come down to the beach to see you!!!!! You are very nice and kind. Love, Ben

The next year he added my nickname but cut out the love.

Tweddy Bear, I like you! Ben

The year after that he was downright cool.

Have a nice time at the beach. Ben

Not a single exclamation mark!

His school photos during those years show far less change. He always had the freckled cheeks, the innocent eyes, and the thin, straight hair with a gaping cowlick over his forehead. With his boy-next-door shirts and all-American style he could have stepped from the pages of a comic book. He was the Archie of our class.

Ben’s small-town values were hard earned. His father, an obstetrician and gynecologist, was raised in Claxton, Georgia, home of the infamous boxed fruitcake more loved in truck stops than in restaurants. Its population in the year we were born was 2,672. Ben’s mother was from nearby Brooklet, whose population was one-fifth that. I asked Ben whether his father had ever adapted to city life after moving to Savannah.

“I think Dad is still more of a country person,” he said. “His favorite pastime is working in the yard. He’s not into city-ish things like Starbucks, museums, and dining spots. He’d just as soon have fried chicken at the deli. He doesn’t drink. He always goes to church. Heck, he wanted to own a gas station until Granny made him go to med school.”

Dr. Edwards was deeply loving as a father. “To this day,” Ben said, “he puts his arm around me. I put my arm around him, and we lie in bed watching TV.”

But he could also be strict. “I remember once when Joe was sixteen,” Ben said, referring to his older brother. “We were in the den, Dad came home one Friday night and asked Joe to take out the trash. Joe said, ‘Okay, I’ll get it.’ Twenty minutes later, Dad came back and asked him again. ‘Dad, I told you I’ll get it,’ Joe said. Twenty minutes later, Dad came back again. ‘Son, take out the trash now or I’m going to spank you.’ Joe stood up and said, ‘Dad, I’m bigger than you are. You’re going to spank me?’

“Dad grabbed him by the shirt and said, ‘Son, let me tell you one damn thing. You may be taller than me, but I will always have enough in my pocket to pay somebody to spank you, so I suggest you take the trash out.’ Then he turned and walked away. Joe stood there for a second, then looked at me. ‘I’m going to take the trash out.’”

Unlike his father, Ben was always attracted to city pleasures. Food, wine, nightlife, the annual Vegas weekend. He followed his father into medical school, then moved with his wife to Memphis and San Diego. But he couldn’t resist the extended family and sweet-tea lifestyle of the South.

“I think there’s a genuine goodness that runs through people here,” he said.

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