Father and Son
This is about my return home, in 2014.
I'd left my hometown almost 8 years before. I set out as if with sword in hand thinking I was going to conquer the world, but returned hungry, divorced, and clutching, instead of the heroic blade, the pommel of a dull butter knife. Those eight years had switched out the sword while I wasn't looking. Even though those eight years didn't go the way I wanted them to go, my dad didn't seem to care. He seemed to take pride in anything that I did. All that mattered to him was that I was home.
My ex-wife told me that the most devastating part about being away from home was that her parents aged in the gaps of time while she was gone. Upon her return she noticed that they walked slightly less upright, that they rambled a bit more, or that their soft touch was a bit more wrinkled than the time before. I was oblivious to this until the first time I came home. Both of my parents seemed to have aged. I don't think I would have noticed if I had never left. We're all getting old, we're all dying, etc. The immortal parent figure was gone. Suddenly there seemed to be a timer. Ticking down. There was this anxious voice in the back of my head whispering the ominous countdown in the back of my head. The people you love are going to start dying.
It didn't prevent me from leaving again. I left to Spain. I spent three years there. I came back. Found my dad older. Again, it didn't prevent me from leaving. I'm in Indiana now, but in that time that I spent there I was able to appreciate my dad's presence a bit more. Everyday before work we'd sit down at the table and have a coffee together. We'd talk about ourselves, we'd exchange stories, sometimes we'd retell the stories we'd forgotten we'd told. It set the tone for the day. Even now, before I begin my day I take a seat, sip my coffee and think about my day. My dad is missing from the table, but it's the ritual that reminds of him. My dad has always been a sort of accomplice. I'm thankful for that.
I'm used to doing things on my own. It's difficult for me to let others do things for me. It's equally difficult for me to talk about the logic of my decision making. They're flaws I know; as I get older I realize that they only get worse, and I understand why dating websites charge more for men if they're in their late thirties and still single.
My mom always wants to make days special, and always asks why? I think I owe what little artistic ability I have to my mother. Her super power has always been her critical eye and because of that she is very good at party planning. Creating imaginary worlds for six-year-olds to celebrate, destroy and gobble up with an attitude of Carpe Diem that the Dead Poets society could only dream about. There's almost something Buddhist in watching all of my mother's careful planning be destroyed by my drunken family. If only parties were something that could be preserved in jars or on paper as works of art. The best part about my mother is that she honors my party decision no matter how ridiculous. I always make them as ridiculous as possible in the hopes that she might say no, but she always comes up with something very impressive. Zombies? Fine. Dinosaurs? Fine. Cannibals? Done!
My mother's other super power is asking why. She always wants to know the why. It's impossible for the social wall to withstand the siege of my mother's why. One day I'll have all the answers to why. I'm sure if she were writing this post she would say, "My son's super power is avoiding questions or saying, I don't know."
What does it feel like to watch your children grow old? To maintain seventeen years of distance. I don't mean in the silly junior could barely walk and now he's going to prom way. I mean, I'll never get old in my mother's time. That difference between us won't shrink. I'll always be that same age away, but still getting older. I'm sure she's noticed. My pimples, taste in clothing, and ashy skin never escaped her scrutiny, but for some reason she hasn't ever mentioned my aging, or what she feels like when I come home after being away so long. It's never anything more than, "oh you have a beard," or "who cut your hair?"
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| AddStep-father and the father sing, "Have you seen her," by the Chi-lites? Not many. |
