Fatherhood, a page at a time

By TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writer

© St. Petersburg Times,
published August 26, 2001

A St. Petersburg man keeps a diary that records every day of his son's life, from before his birth to young adulthood. It's his labor of love - and a way to heal an old hurt.

ST. PETERSBURG -- Nobody, not a mad housewife, not even Bridget Jones, has ever kept a diary like Tom Cagley's.

He could have skipped a day or two and no one would have known. Actually, he could have quit altogether when Nick started kindergarten. Or middle school. Or when he went away to college.

He didn't.

In a lot of ways, he couldn't.

Cagley, of St. Petersburg, started the diary Sept. 10, 1979 -- the day he found out his wife, Jackie, was pregnant with Nick.

As of August 17, he had written 7,411 pages in 62 spiral notebooks of varying colors -- roughly 3-million words covering the 21 years of Nick's life. Nearly all of it in longhand.

He has made 8,011 consecutive entries.

And never missed a day.

Last night, I dreamt about a lady, all dressed in white, including a white hat. It reminded me of the 1930s or '40s. I believe the woman was my mother. She died at age 42 in 1951, 29 years to the day of your birth.

Welcome to the world, my dear son.

Make it better.

The notebooks and the boy have finally caught up with each other. Stacked end to end, the books measure 5 foot 10 -- the same height as Nick.

To say the diary is a chronicle of Nick's life is like saying To Kill a Mockingbird was about a lawyer.

The diary is a conversation between a father and his son. It's a way to measure time and growth, like the pencil marks on a bedroom door.

But just as importantly, it's a bandage on a wound.

• 3 years old: You and I went out to walk after dinner (it was our time) and decided to ride your tricycle which had been out in the afternoon rain. You sat on the seat anyway, then after a minute said, looking up at me, "This is going to bother me." So I changed your pants and jeans and I carried you around one block on my shoulders, the final block in my arms. "I like this way better," you said, staring over my shoulder at the moon. (5/16/83).
• 5 years old: (Your mother) and I separated for a few months, and I moved to an apartment. One Saturday night, just as you and I were going to bed, you asked, "When are you going to come home, Daddy? Why are you doing this?" (1/6/86)
• 10 years old: They fired me after 15 years with Maison Blanche as SVP. You drove home with me that dark Monday night. "They fired the wrong man, Daddy." (10/4/90).
• 21 years old: I asked you what three things you learned from me, and to tell me for Father's Day. "1. If it is to be, it is up to me. Ten two-letter words. 2. Persistence. Even though it's annoying, it's the only way to get things done. Don't ever give up. 3. Be responsible for yourself. And as a bonus . . . you always taught me to have a good time, to play hard and to work hard." (6/15/01)

Cagley's mother died when he was 16, "before I got to ask her the questions that are important to me now."

Two years later, he went away to college at Notre Dame. That fall, his father remarried.

Cagley came home to Minneapolis at Christmastime to a cool reception from his stepmother. A few months later, back at college, he got a letter from his dad.

"His letters were always three paragraphs long," he remembered. "A short greeting, a closing, and the second paragraph -- that was always the meat.

"The second graph of this letter said, "Fran and I think it would be good if you worked away for the summer.' "

Worked away for the summer?

Fran and I?

"I guess you could see it coming because of my stepmother . . . but this was my father. The man who gave me life."

He called his dad. Just to make sure this wasn't some horrible mistake.

It wasn't.

"So I just went my own way," Cagley said.

The one place he never went again was home. He found jobs and rented apartments during the summers and spent holidays where he could. One Christmas was at a roommate's house, another was on campus with a group of exchange students.

"I can't remember if I ever felt more lonely," he said. "I just kind of studied, wrote and slept. One of my roommates invited me up to his house in Chicago for New Year's. He felt sorry for me, I guess. So that was a break."

For years after he was told not to come home, Cagley sent Christmas cards to his father and his family. To see if just maybe the ice had melted. And when he started his own family, he added photographs of his children.

He never got a response.

"In 1965, my family and I moved to Minneapolis, and I called him. I asked if I could come see him. It wasn't too far away. He said no. That it wouldn't do any good. I asked if we could at least meet for lunch. No.

"I even walked up to his office one day with three of the kids. But he had gone for the day.

"I never talked to him again."

Cagley's father died in 1979.

The year Jackie got pregnant with Nick.

1980: Nick at two days old is welcomed by Dad on the day the baby came home from the hospital in Baton Rouge.

Cagley, 66, had five children with his first wife before the marriage ended in divorce in 1976. He married Jackie two years later, and Nick came along.

His other children are grown and live out of state, and in one respect, that's a good thing.

"It always bothered me that I never did this for my other children," he said. "But there just wasn't enough time. . . . " His voice trailed off.

"I've never brought the subject of Nick's diary up with them. I think they know I'm doing it, but I'm embarrassed enough that I won't send them a copy (of this story).

"Nick has more than they ever had growing up. I had more time to spend with Nick. I'm just afraid they'll think I showed a preference to Nick.

"But when they come for Thanksgiving, I might give them a copy.

"Maybe they'll understand."

Cagley spent more than 30 years working as a buyer for several department stores, but he was always a word merchant at heart.

He is currently a vice president for a New York apparel firm, but he also freelances as a proofreader for Home Shopping Network and a Tampa ad agency. He reads to the blind over a special band on WUSF, does the New York Times crossword puzzle and has written a novel he hopes to get published.

"I have no creative background," he said. "My dad was a grain salesman, and my mother was a housewife. I majored in English in college but spent my whole life in retail sales.

"But I've always been awash in words."

And it's words that he uses to fill what he calls "a hole in my background.

"There was nobody to ask what I did for my 10th birthday. . . .

"This way, Nick will always know that happened in his life as we moved along."

He keeps the notebooks in an upstairs bedroom and has thought about transferring them to a CD. But that would be too impersonal. He wants to save all the photos, the newspaper clippings, the pictures . . . and the coffee stains and smudges.

"I don't know if Nick wants to know all this stuff," Tom said, looking down at the yellowing pages.

"I sure hope he does."

You screamed and screamed and wouldn't stop until she had gone to the compactor, dug out the old binding, cleaned it off and had taken the new off and replaced it with the old.

During this whole agonizing process, you never left her side.

Nicholas Reed-Hartzell Cagley played for the Tampa Bay Junior Lightning ice hockey team and switched to roller hockey when he got older. He also plays tennis, likes country music, has every John Wayne movie ever made and is dating a girl from Baton Rouge, La. Her father teaches at Louisiana State University, where Nick will be a sophomore this fall.

1989: Dad offers congratulations as Nick, 9, receives a badge from his Cub Scout den. He made Eagle Scout in 1995.

He has seen only a few pages of the diary. It's not that he's forbidden. He can look any time he wants. And it's not that he's afraid of being embarrassed by anything in the notebooks.

"I just don't feel I'm ready yet," he said. "I think I'd appreciate it more when I'm older.

"I might read it when I start my own family. Or when my dad dies."

It's not easy for him to think about what it would be like not to be a part of the diary. He has never known a time when he wasn't.

"My dad and I did stuff together when I was growing up -- fishing, sports, all that. But it wasn't any different from anyone else.

"He asked me once if I wanted him to stop doing it, and I said, "Why stop?' "

Nick and his dad talk -- either by phone or by e-mail -- every other day. On the days they don't communicate, Cagley writes about what he and his wife are doing, or about some current event. The conversation may be one-sided sometimes, but it's always there.

"Some of my close friends know about it," Nick said. "And my girlfriend.

"I might want to do the same thing when I have children.

"I know my dad would like that."

Cagley didn't forgive his father for most of his adult life. But about a year ago, he had a dream about his dad. A dream that changed his mind.

[Times photo: ] 1998: Tom and Jackie Cagley flank Nick after a Sunday brunch at the Stouffer Vinoy Resort to celebrate their son’s graduation from Shorecrest Preparatory School.

"I dreamt I was a young boy," he began, "and my dad was in a bathroom fixing something and he was talking to me. I looked up and he was bleeding from the mouth.

"It convinced me he was human too. It helped me see him as someone who made mistakes, but tried the best he knew how.

"Now, every time I go out running, I say it over and over again.

"I forgive you."

Cagley stopped and collected himself, and after a while, a smile came across his face.

You know, he said, there's only one word in the English language that can be made by using all six letters of his last name.

"The word," he said, "is legacy."

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