The Telegraph Set

My Dad passed away two weeks ago. "Died following a brief illness" is how it would be described in the obituaries. Aggressive b-cell lymphoma, likely Stage IV. Given all the facts, he chose not to pursue further evaluation or treatment and died one day shy of two months from being diagnosed. I won't bore you with more details. Condolence gathering is also not the purpose of this writing. The purpose is to tell the story of the telegraph set.

My father had been a telegrapher in his younger days, years before I was born. I don't know much else except that, in his opinion, he wasn't all that good at it. Yet, among the items he kept from back then time was a telegraphy set -- a sending key which ticked out the Morse code messages and a sounder to receive them. He may or may not have been good at it, but the telegraphy set apparently had some meaning for him.

My parents divorced when I was in my early teens. My mom got custody of the brats, including me, and my dad moved to a place closer to where he worked. He took with him what he wanted, things which had purpose and/or meaning for him. As I explored through the things he left behind, I found he had left the sounder portion of the telegraph set. That's not how I had viewed it, of course. To my younger self, it was the bigger piece of those two pieces I knew somehow worked together. It was the clunky side, the side that seemed broken to look at it. It didn't seem as cool as the other piece which had a pad you could tap on and play like you were sending some secret code. To this young teenager, he'd taken the best part. I never asked why he left it and couldn't understand why he left it behind.

My dad remarried a very nice woman who I came to view as my mom away from my mom. They bought a house about 50 miles south and settled in, both working at their respective jobs until retirement came for both of them. Before then, they laid plans to take up residence in Maine, and as soon as they both called it a day for the last time, they headed north.

In the early 1990s, I headed toward their portion of Downeast to see this place they loved so much. It was beautiful both in terms of the scenery and the layout of their home. I saw many of the items that I had seen in their house in New York, including his half of that telegraph set. I hadn't really noticed it in their home down here, as the rooms were smaller and places to put things not always easy to find. But I'm sure it had a special place because it had one in Maine. It was in the room with his computer, stereo, etc. It was on a mantlepiece, just as he had left the other half of the set.

I saw the sending key, recognized it and smiled, but still didn't understand why he didn't take the whole set. It's not as though my mother wanted it. I just didn't "get it" until years later.

My dad was a quietly sentimental man, a good man and caring father. He had also become the distant parent who still wanted to be a part of his children's lives, but didn't get to be there as much as he might have wanted by virtue of divorce decree. Yet, he had his "connection". The telegraph set. The sender on his end, the receiver still here, left where they could always be seen. Messages from one home to another, from parent to child. Advice and help, always there, always available if needed. All of it in one message, one perhaps not said enough between father and daughter, but still silently said and received through such intangible means.

Yup, I finally got the symbolism of the action. Took more than three decades, but I finally got it. Pity I never told him.

Hey, Dad?
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