My Fathers 3

Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle, from the tv series Foyle’s War

Acted by Michael Kitchen:

I love Michael Kitchen. Ever since I first saw him in the movie Enchanted April, one of my favorite healing movies. He has a understated way of acting, but he acts deeply, in my opinion. His face is very subtle, but very expressive to me.

I was very happy to find him acting in the show Foyle’s War, as the main character, Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle. The show is set during World War 2 in a vulnerable area of England, in the county of Devon. He has an adult son who is a fighter pilot and yet he loves him, is concerned for him, spends time with him, and it is obvious that he still considers him his son, in a very sweet and tender way. Foyle also seems to parent and guide many people he works with in the show.

He thinks deeply and explains his thought processes. He listens to others and is willing to learn and grow and change. We love that a lot. He is intelligent, which has always been so important to us. He is so lovely and we love him so much. I wish he was my father.

My father:

Look at his smile.  Isn’t he just beautiful?  🙂

Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle.

Chief Superintendent Christopher Foyle and Samantha Stewart, his driver and assistant, acted by Honeysuckle Weeks.

My Fathers 2

My Father Captain Christopher Pike:

(talks about character and plot lines from Star Trek original series and Star Trek re-boot series.)

When I was a very very young child I watched the original Star Trek show. I don’t really have a lot of memories from that time of watching the show, but I think that I really loved this character. When I was a teenager and was re-watching the original series one character really struck a cord with me in the father arena, though there is another character in the original series who does that as well. Although I didn’t understand it at the time, it is quite clear to me why I feel so much attachment and connection to him and especially to him as a father.

Captain Christopher Pike is a captain of a starship that is abducted with two female shipmates for the expressed purpose of being enslaved and forced into conceiving the next generation of slaves for a species that has mind control.  He is responsible to the two women, to the other woman that they have abducted, and for all the people working on his starship. His is brave and kind and compassionate. His determination in seeking freedom convinces the other species into letting them go. Later in his career he is injured severely in a serious accident where he bravely rescues other people’s lives and becomes wheelchair bound that seems like almost an iron lung device, unable to talk except through two blinking lights on the front of his chair.

So I suppose there are several things that you can all see that I would find to love about this character, despite his circumstances, he is concerned and caring and protective of others. He is strong and brave. He is kind and gentle and generous with others. Quite possibly the ideal father to my way of thinking.

Acted by Jeffrey Hunter from Star Trek: The Original Series:

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So I’ve always had a very soft spot in my heart for Captain Christopher Pike. Some time ago I read lots of the Star Trek fiction books that had come out on the market. Some of my favorites to read were the few that were written based in the time of Captain Pike, who was the previous Captain to Captain James Kirk of the Enterprise starship.

I had been deeply troubled by his severe disabilities in the service of rescuing others. It really hurt my heart to see that his life was reduced from such a wonderful adventurous life to such a small, contained life. I know that he chose to rescue other people’s lives, even at the risk to his own, but it still hurts me to see how deeply limited his life had become.

I was so very happy to hear that Captain Pike was going to be a part of the re-boot Star Trek movies. I loved him so much in the first movie and was so happy to see him acting in a fatherly manner to a young Jim Kirk, encouraging him to be a better man and to become a leader.

In the re-boot Star Trek movies, acted by Bruce Greenwood:

I was so happy and excited that the “new time-line” could bring a better life for my much beloved character and father image. I was devastated, when in the second movie they casually kill off the character. I tried to talk about this with my therapist a couple of years ago, after the movie had come out, telling her that he had meant a lot to me, like a father and that I loved him so much, and then only ended up sobbing and unable to speak. She looked at me gently and said, well obviously this character has meant a lot to you. And I was like, yeah. (One of many reasons that this therapist was a perfect person for me to see, that she was able to see I valued and connected to and with a fictional character and treated me with kindness and gentleness about it.)

I realize that in both timelines he had a tragic ending, but I tend to ignore that. It works the best for me. So when I think of him, I think of him alive, happy, vibrant, being real and proud and brave and being my dad. I love my dad.

My Fathers 1

Being sexually abused by my mother really shattered my ability to trust, but I found that despite that I was able to slowly piece together a system of connectedness that allowed me to find love, acceptance, bonding, and healing elsewhere. I read about the shattering of attachment for mother-daughter sexual abuse survivors each time that I read about the subject of MDSA. I think that it must be very similar for other survivors of child sexual abuse.

I know that I have written here on the blog about my issues with bonding and attachment and especially in the ways that I have tried to find connectedness in my life and in my life and to establish more; to the world, to others, and to symbols that I find a great deal of meaning and healing from.

Some of the symbols that I find a great deal of meaning and healing from are fictional  characters that I feel connected to.

I’ve been working in the last few years to try to identify past connections that bring me meaning and healing and establishing more connections. Some connections just seemed to pass beyond my conscious awareness, even though at one time they had a lot of meaning and brought a lot of connection and healing into my life at some time.

Trying to re-discover those past connections has helped me to see myself as someone who desperately wanted and needed  connection and as someone who was incredibly brave to do so, despite how horrific my childhood existence was and how difficult it was to trust my emotions, especially love, when I was hated, scapegoated, and abused by my family of origin, who I tried to love.

I re-discovered my father Herb Hubbard when I started to re-watch the show The Mothers-in-Law. I loved him when I was a child. Herb was a husband, a father of a college daughter, and a businessman. The thing that I liked the most about him and still do, is his ability to manage his emotions, which neither of my parents did. Since my father was an active alcoholic, there was never a strong man in my life, never a good man in my life, never a calm man in my life, never a loving and good and safe man in my life. But Herb was that man in my life.

Herb was a good role model and human being to me despite the drama going on in the household, with his wife, with his neighbors who lacked boundaries and common respect, and with his college age son who decides to marry the neighbor’s daughter, Herb manages his life and positively impacts his family with love, determination, resilience, and gentleness. I like that last one the best; gentleness.

Here he is, my dad:

Herb Hubbard from the show The Mothers-in-Law

I love my dad.