"He is greedy only when it came to me" - memories of the daughter of Steve Jobs
Books / / December 19, 2019
One day I asked my father if he donated to charity. In response, he snapped back, saying that it was "none of my business." Lauren once bought niece velvet dress, paid off his card, and from this came the scandal - he was reading aloud from the check digit in the kitchen. I assumed that his stinginess was partly the fault of the fact that the house did not have furniture that Reid was not the nurse who constantly would help him that the housekeeper would come occasionally. Perhaps I was wrong.
In grocery stores, when we were in the Gap and the restaurants he counted aloud, how much it costs and what can afford ordinary family. If the prices were too high, he came to the indignation and refused to pay. But I wanted to be recognized that it is not like the others, and I spent carelessly.
I heard about his generosity: he bought Tina "Alfa Romeo", and Lauren - "BMW". He also put out a loan for her studies. It seemed to me that he was to be greedy only when it came to me, and refused to buy me another pair of jeans, or furniture, or to fix the heating. With everyone else he was generous.
It was difficult to understand why a man who has so much money, creates an atmosphere of scarcity, why do not they have showers.
In addition to the "Porsche" my father was a big silver "Mercedes". I called him a small state.
- Why is a small state? - my father asked.
- Because he's the size of a small country, heavy enough to crush him, and quite expensive, so a year to feed its population, - I replied.
It was a joke, but I also wanted to touch it - to indicate how much he spends on himself to get to delve into yourself, to be with you honest.
- Small State, - he said, chuckling. - And really funny, Liz.
Once, he passed me in the corridor, the father said:
- You know, each of my new girls were more complex relationship with her father than the previous.
I do not know why he said it and what I had to draw a conclusion.
Most of the women whom I knew, as I grew up without a father, fathers throwing them, died, divorced from their mothers.
The absence of the father was not something unique or meaningful. My father was the importance of the other. Instead of raising me, he invents a machine that changed the world; He was rich, famous, moved in society, smoked marijuana and then went for a drive in the south of France with a billionaire on Pigozzi family, had an affair with Joan Baez. No one would have thought, "This guy was supposed to instead of all this to engage the daughter upbringing." What nonsense.
As much as I was bitter because it so long was not there, and as if I have keenly felt this bitterness, I put it in himself, did not give fully understand it: I was wrong, I was selfish, I empty a place. I'm so used to regard as something unimportant, my attitude towards him, his attitude towards me, and in general the relationship of fathers and children in general, did not realize that in the report, this position has become to me as natural as air.
It was only recently when I got a call one friend - older than me, the father adult daughter - and told about her engagement, I realized something. His daughter and her fiance came to tell him the news, and he, to my surprise, burst into tears.
- Why do you cry? - I asked.
- Just since she was born, I - my wife - had to protect her and care for her, - he said. - And I realized that it was now the duty of someone else. I am no longer in the forefront, not the most important person in her life.
After this conversation, I began to suspect that underestimated that missed that I had missed my father.
Living with him, I tried to express it in everyday language - the language of washing machines, sofas and bicycles, reducing the price of its absence to the price of things. I felt that I nedodali some trivia, and this feeling did not go away, it hurt him in the chest. In fact, it was more than that, the whole universe, and I instinctively felt it during that telephone talk: we did not have the kind of love that need to take care of each other, which are only between father and child.
[…]
One evening, when Lauren came home, I went to meet her to the gate, where the rose bushes grew.
- know the computer"Lisa"? - she asked, closing the gates at the jingle ring. Her hair sparkled in the sun, on the shoulder was a leather briefcase. - He's been named in honor of you, huh?
We had this before did not say, and I do not know why she asks today. Maybe her someone asked.
- I do not know. Perhaps - I lied. I hoped that it would close the topic.
- Must be in honor of you, - she said. - Let's ask when he will return.
- Yes, it does not matter - I replied. I do not like to see my father again said their "no". While it may be, if you ask Lauren, he will answer in the affirmative?
A few minutes later, he appeared at the gate, and Lauren came up to him. I followed her.
- Honey, - she said - because the computer was named after Lisa, right?
- No, - he said.
- True?
- Yes. True.
- Come on - she looked into his eyes. I felt admiration and thanks for the fact that she continued to insist that I would have given up. They looked into each other's eyes, standing on the walkway leading to the door.
- It is not named after Lisa - her father said.
At that moment, I wished that she asked. I was embarrassed: Now Lauren knew I was not so important to her father, she must have thought.
- Then, after whom do you call it?
- My old friends, - he said, looking into the distance as if remembering. With melancholy. It is because of a sad dreaminess in his eyes and I believe he's telling the truth. For the rest, it was more like a sham.
I have in my stomach had a strange feeling - it appeared when I was faced with the hypocrisy or stupidity, and more recently it has almost never left me. And why would he lie? His true feelings clearly belonged to other Lisa. I've never heard that in his youth he met the girl Lisa, and later told this to my mother. "Nonsense!" - was her answer. But maybe she just did not know, maybe he kept the first Lisa secret from both of us.
- I'm sorry, my friend, - he said, patting me on the back and went into the house.
Lisa Brennan-Jobs - journalist, daughter of Steve Jobs from the first marriage. They have from the outset been an uneasy relationship, Jobs for a long time did not recognize paternity, but then took the girl to him. In this book, Lisa described his growing up and the difficulties of communication with her father.
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