THE STONE BUDDHA

“People thought the statue was my father….”

I was two years old when my father, then a young professor, received a grant to travel to southeast Asia. He’d been tapped to teach Hinduism and Buddhism at his college, and the trip was a chance for him to deepen his knowledge of those religions. While overseas, he sent home a crate containing a few religious icons and statues to use in his classes, as well as this stone Buddha head, which sat on the mantel in our dining room for the remainder of my childhood.

People thought the statue was my father; like this Buddha, he had a large, square head, a somewhat squashed nose, and full, flat lips. Unlike the Buddha, my father was not a tranquil man. Although I'd adored him as a little girl—I remember him laughing as he lifted me to ride on his shoulders, teaching my two sisters and me to fly paper kites, explaining cloud forms and bird songs—his spirit seemed to darken as we grew. Maybe he hadn’t expected us to develop personalities of our own. Maybe his  traumatic childhood with a manipulative, narcissistic mother caught up with him and overwhelmed him.

Whatever the case, my sisters and I became increasingly anxious in his presence. Just tiptoeing into his study to tell him supper was ready would outrage him: “COMing!” he’d roar. He responded to our academic successes with disparaging condescension, and when we laughed or played together, he would whimper bitterly, “like an injured animal,” my younger sister recalls, as if our very happiness was an affront. 

Even insignificant acts—reading the wrong book, going to a friend’s house after school—aggrieved him. But rather than forbidding us to do these things, he would mutter and seethe under his breath. Guilt, martyrdom, and suppressed rage became his primary parenting tools. My mother, for her part, scoffed at his wrath and belittled his furies. She gave us permission to do what he wouldn't, and her cool disdain gave me a model for coping.

My dad retired from Earlham College at 70, and died last January at 99. After his death, more than 100 former students and colleagues took to Facebook to remember him. They described a person I had not known: “a tender spirit coupled with a brilliant intellect,” “a fine gentleman who could make conversation with anyone, including the introverts like me,” “brilliant, sweet, funny and absent-minded,” “one of the greatest teachers of my life,” “someone who changed the course of my life,” “a light in this seemingly dark world.” One wrote, “His belief in me helped me believe in myself.” Another, simply: “He loved us.”

I had spent years trying and mostly failing to forgive my father for the pain he caused me and my sisters. Now, as I read the tributes, it was as if the camera was pulling back to reveal a much more complex picture. My dad hadn't been capable of sharing the best parts of himself with his family. Yet he'd had this brilliant, sweet side, and as I scrolled through the posts, an unexpected wave of gratitude overtook me: In the classroom, among colleagues, and through his scholarship, he’d found places where his gifts were not only appreciated, but actually altered lives. 

Towards the end, when my father needed full-time care, my mother moved into a small apartment and wanted to offload the Buddha head. Neither of my sisters cared to take it; it reminded them too much of our father. For the same reason, my husband refused to have it in our house. He’s spent two decades living with the fallout of my upbringing. But I’ve always loved the statue, and eventually my husband relented. To me, it evokes the dad I longed for and mourned most of my life.

I also love that it’s broken. This stone Buddha head has lost its body (it was once part of a seated statue), all but a thin patch of its gold-leaf overlay, and its ushnisha (the bump on its head that signifies the Buddha’s luminescence). Yet despite so much damage, just look: It is serene.

—Celia Barbour