Getting to Know Dad After Hes Gone

Richard Leitman is finally getting to know his father, even though he passed away last year.Leitman, author of Dear Roz - Finding the Truth About My Father in his Wartime Love Letters to My Mother from iUniverse (www.Dear-Roz.com), said he never had a great relationship with his father. That always bothered Air Swimmers him, and in trying to piece together the shards of his childhood, his mother gifted him with the letters his father wrote to her while he was a soldier in World War II. Now, he has finally made peace with his father by reading his letters, and then writing a few back to him."My dad spent 5 unwanted years in the army including rc flying fish one overseas," he said. "He got married and had a son - me - during this time. Over that time period, he spent a total of only 100 days with my mother. It's a sharp contrast to today, in which people live together in many cases way before they are married."In a time when hundreds of thousands of military families are separated because of deployments in Iraq rc flying fish and Afghanistan, Leitman found it striking how much more difficult it was for soldiers at war 70 years ago."His life was at risk daily, and yet letters took six weeks to be sent and answered," he said. "In an age of cell phones, satellite phones, instant messages and email, how could we possibly understand what families went through back then? How could he or my mom ever know whether the other one was safe or hurt?"Leitman said he always seemed distant from his father, and he never understood it. When Leitman started reading the letters his father wrote his mom back in the 1940s, his father's motivations and idiosyncrasies became clearer to him."My dad was deeply wounded by the war experiences and it is no wonder that he had some post traumatic stress which contributed to his rougher side," Leitman added. "I let the rougher side get in the way of my love and communication with him and was, in turn, wounded. I missed out on fully having a father and he missed out on fully having a son."In the end, his experience on reading the letters, and writing some of his own to round out the emotional journey of his book, helped him come to grips with what he missed."At the very least, I know I could not have endured what he went through on the front and I developed a deep respect for him, and love, by reading his letters."