Father’s Day and the FAX MACHINE that nearly killed me.

The year after I moved into my first house (rental) with my ex-husband, we got a FAX MACHINE.
I put the words FAX MACHINE in caps so you understand the gravity of this situation.
FAX MACHINE.
Yes, we are going back into the Hot Tub Time Machine, people, so put on your t-shirt under your strappy, flowery dress and slip on your wedged shoes. (Remember that?)
It seemed VERY fancy to have a fax machine, and my agent at the time assured me that it would pay for itself ASAP.
Sharron! THINK OF IT! There would be no more running across the city, over to the agency for scripts, sides, music or any other brand of audition material that I needed to pick up. All this info would just magically arrive on one long sheet of shiny paper, spit out of the aforementioned fancy FAX MACHINE.
Think of THAT, Youngs!!!
No SO long ago, you had to get on the fricken TTC (if you didn’t have a vehicle) and go to your agency to get your audition stuff.
If you had to go and pick your package up after hours, it was hanging from the front door in a sad plastic bag or some such situation, alongside MANY other bags for the other actors who were just getting off their side gig and could not come to the agency during the day.
Simply thinking back on the all the time we spent back then, just trying to get the friggen material for auditions, makes me tired.
IT TOOK AS MUCH TIME AS (OR MORE THAN) THE FUCKING AUDITION!!
So, it felt VERY VERY VERY VERY grown up, professional even, to not only have my own house (rental) but to also have a fax machine.
I was 27.
This makes me laugh out loud because I thought I had it ALL figured out, back then.
That I was wise. That I was mature.
Lol.
Ha.
Hahahhahahahaah.
Oh boy…I just sighed so loud.
THEN, I just closed my eyes and gave the olden time me of 27 years of age a spiritual hug, in retrospect.

The illustrious FAX MACHINE sat on a IKEA side table, in the loft of our cool house (rental) and setting it up seemed like a scene from Mission Impossible.
I remember asking Dave Bennett (one of my agents from days of yore) to send me a fax, to make sure it was working.
The phone rang it’s special ring, the machine beeped and buzzed, and then picked up…then the paper started to roll out and all I could see was the handwritten words, HI SHARRON.
I was so fucking excited, I could barely take it.
After the general hubbub of connecting it, the excitement wore off pretty quickly.
Excitement is such a fickle thing, huh?
It only went off every couple of days, so most of the time after that, the machine just sat there, quiet and forgettable.

About two months or so after we got it, long enough for the fanciness to wear off, the phone rang at 6:00am one morning.
But it was the distinct FAX MACHINE ring.
What? What the fuck.
I was doing Showboat at the time, the longest show in the history of the universe, so I went to bed pretty late…and 6:00am was fucking early.
This was the time of day, if you were particularly exhausted (which it seemed I always was), that did not make ANY sense if you were jolted out of a dead sleep.
And I was…jolted out of my dead sleep…by the FAX MACHINE.
I stumbled out of bed to the loft, which was still dark and looked at the FAX MACHINE and watched the machine spit out this image:

This is a picture of my dad, Norm Matthews…who’d been dead for almost twenty-five years.
My heart started to beat…my head scrambled to make sense of what the fuck was happening in front of me, on the Ikea table.
Then I got a thrill of loose fear that ran all through my body, and my breath caught in my throat.

Is this how my father finally contacts me? Through a fax?

Again, it was 6:00am, you will have to give me a break…I was discombobulated.
I walked over to the FAX MACHINE, carefully, and kept my feet as far from it as possible, leaning in…ready to run, if necessary.
1000 thoughts ran through my overtired brain.
Here are a smattering of them:

Why would my Dad scare the shit out of me by sending me a fax of himself?
Who knows why anyone does anything, really?
I didn’t know him…so who can guess what his intentions might be?
Why this picture?
Why 6:00am?

As I leaned in closer, the phone suddenly rang again, and if I didn’t have a stronger heart? That would have truly been it for me.
Truly.
I think I screamed.
Yet, still my ex-husband slept.
AND I was still alone with a FAX MACHINE print of my dead dad, a frantically beating heart, and a ringing phone…at 6:00am.

Well, that must be my dad calling me. 

WHAT CONCLUSION WOULD YOU COME TO!?!?
I reached for the receiver with two fingers, like it was a snake or something, and picked it up, saying nothing…waiting for my father to tell me what he needed me to hear, from the other side of this mortal coil.
I was actually kind of excited, too, to be totally honest.
Sad, right?
Oh, life.

Sharron?? Sharron!!! Did you get the fax?

It was my mother.
What the high holy fuck?

Mom, what? Did you send this?

Yes! did you get it? I know you wanted this picture so, I thought I would fax it from work. DID YOU GET IT!?!

My mother, always free of boundaries and not caring of time, decided that she would send me the picture as SOON as she got to her job at Westinghouse, as a security guard, as THIS would be the best time for her to access to the company FAX MACHINE.

Mom!! YouscaredthefuckingshitoutofmeIalmostcrappedmyself. Do you know what time it is?

Does the fax ring!?! Oh, I guess it would. Sorry. I’ll call you later? Did you get it though? And do you talk to your friends like that, Sharron? Lord.

Yes, MOM. I got it! You took ten years off my life. TEN!

I will NEVER forget that. It was such a strange moment.
But my most treasured part of that moment…and yes, there is a treasured part…was that my heart and spirit revealed themselves to have a hidden pocket of hope that we were being contacted by my dad.
It was so pure and real, in the moment.

Two days ago, while digging through some photos, I found the original photo.
It’s really a wonderful picture of him.
A man I don’t know.
But still my dad.

Three years ago, I finally started to write about my dad on Father’s Day, and honour him.
For years, I didn’t feel like I had the right, because he died when I was two, and as mentioned, I never knew him.
But I do.
I really do.
I have the right and I remind myself of the fact every year.

Today, I got up and felt really melancholy.
I did all my thinking and pondering to try and figure out what it was…was it something I needed to deal with? Is it more than just the ennui of the pandemic? Did I just need to feel it and not figure it…or what exactly WAS it.
And then I knew…
Lonely.
I found inside myself a surprising and uncomfortable bone deep lonely.
The kind of lonely that almost defies description.
And as I unsatisfactorily fussed around with that feeling, I remembered that it’s Father’s Day.
Oh.

I almost didn’t write about it…but then, I thought, if I feel this way? I’m not the only one.
This is tough day for many, many, many humans.

So, to all of you out there who feel not enough OR too much today? I see you.
You are allowed.
Breathe it in.
Sit in it.
Feel it.
Talk about it.
It’s not indulgent…it just is what it is.
It will pass.

This is Norman David Matthews.
All round cool guy, and remembered fondly by many.
Gone far too soon and missed by the same many.
I do wonder what he would say to me, if he had the chance…if I had a HOT TUB FAX MACHINE for him to contact me on, in my condo today. : )

Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers and to all the people who have a complicated relationship with Father’s Day.

 

S.M. – June 20th, 2021. Toronto, ON

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