stuckbetweenStations.

An internet never forgets:

I wrote this in June of 2008. My father died unexpectedly in October of 2009. I haven’t read it since I wrote it, and didn’t breathe for the all too quick minutes to took me to read it again now. He was this-and this is mine. If ever there was a reason to start writing again—what am I recording right now that won’t be mine in a year’s time? Everything. Nothing. 

And we’ll see it through.

it’s been a while since i’ve seen my dad. not because of ill will or anything close to it. it’s that he’s just begun his retirement-spawned coast towards relaxed living & as he is a solitary creature by nature, i’ve just let him be. we all have, more or less. my whole life, i’ve been told we’re so similar. only the lonely & two of a kind. prefer outside to inside, usually, & like beer quite cold and not necessarily expensive, either. irrational & passionate towards what we love. affections towards good music & meals & selective regarding close company. above all else-fiercely loyal & protective towards those who show us the same courtesy. & southern. real southern.

i know enough of his family to know that we grew up quite differently. college wasn’t an option for him, so when Uncle Sam came calling it was an easy pleaser towards his father to join up. Spent the next forty years working here & there & everywhere to find some sort of solace in his dream deferred. at lunch today we spoke of that dream-what could’ve been, etc. But what I found was that he’s not a man for what could’ve been or even what might still be. He’s a man built by the choices he’s made & the path those choices have earned him. Earned all of us, really.

It was always about the river with him. Getting time with the water & the natural parts of a day. Still speaking in army-speak, he tells me 31 May was his last day on payroll. Since 31 May, he hasn’t known the days by number. And that’s allright with him. He looks happy, too. Hemingway shaped facial hair pure white with age & smile lines I haven’t seen before. We talk Neil Young records & he lends me a 70s compilation with all the greats. Says that Bread’s always been his favorite from that time, too. Takes the moment to remind me that the girls loved him, then-with his long hair and mustache. Hilarious.

Am curious if that’s the band that soundtracked him meeting my mom. He references “Make it with you” as we talk about how he met my sweet mama & I can almost see it reflected in his words. The way he speaks of her is so purely sweet & saturated in the loyalty which apparently is mirrored in myself. I love him.

Finally, I ask how he knew with her-how he knew that was it. That it was love big enough to make it. It was 1974, he says, and she put up with me. Laughing, he tells me not to tell her that part. I wouldn’t, but I don’t think that makes it any less true. He goes on to say you just know, & his smile is so pure at that moment that I don’t doubt his words at all. He tells me not to worry-I’ll know too. I just will.

Listen to the Bread song on the way home. Windows down, sweating it out, waiting for the cheese that threaded its way through most love songs of the era. Granted, “climbing on rainbows” satisfies the quota fairly well, but the song itself isn’t at all what I’d imagined. Rather than dreamy nonsense capsized by unrealistic expectations & the like, it’s about picking someone to go through hell with. “Make it with.” So simple, so sweet, and so true.