Father’s Day. Of what shall I sing?
Of my own father? The first memory: a frantic search by the
side of a creek. My father had told me
not to take off my shoes and socks. I
said I had understood. I distractedly
said they would stay on my feet. I took
them off anyway. The beckoning call of
the lush green grass proved too tempting.
My feet had to feel . They had to
be alive. I was probably about two-and-a-half-years-old.
Well, actually, that part was not
remembered too well. No, what is
remembered is was the terror filled heart of a barefoot boy. I don’t even remember seeing my father. My eyes were focused on a mad search of the
banks of the creek. My father’s
lumbering shadow was approaching. Fear
and anguish filled my heart; I had to find my socks and shoes. I don’t remember if I found them. I do however remember the panic at the feel
of my father’s lumbering shadow.
As I matured, so did my
relationship with my father. Until the
age of about ten, he was a demi-god. A
diety capable of love and fear. In
moments of benevolence, you would laugh together as he taught you the tools of
the trade in making a pizza. He always
pressed for introduction to new worlds,
ideas, and experiences. These trips
might range from the threadbare museum
of Natural History at Fair Park, to the hidden mysteries of the orient revealed
at an eatery near White Rock Lake: Antone’s.
Late nights of challenges and strategy were provided by the borthers
Parker. Millions were ready to be won or lost in
Atlantic City, or the fate of the world was decided in games of Risk. In this arena provided a safe refuge to
challenge where young bucks could challenge.
Though there are things I would
never know, I was given sight to my own fathers battle to maintain his separate
shadow. I remember call’s he would receive
from his own father. His father
seemingly had a knack to call when my father was preoccupied. Be it a football game, or the weekly
holy-half-hour of M*A*S*H... my father would grudgingly accept the interruption by his father. It was his dad after all. From the minds eye of a child, I remember most
of these conversations consisted of my father’s introduction of “Hello Dad (pause),
yes sir, (pause)” then to be followed by seemingly fifteen minuites of “Uh huh,…
uh huh… uh huh….” The occasioned interrupted
attempt to get his own voice in which sometimes was only sometimes allowed. Sadly, these interruptions became more allowed the older my
grandfather became. The more his own shadow began to diminish. Although now my
grandfather has passed I know that my Dad would do anything to hear that
voice again, that is merely the gift of bitterness that usually accompanies
nostalgia. To recapture a piece, even if it is only the shadow. Or, one might say it is
merely the part of relations between the son and his father.
By fourteen my shadow
was frustrated. Longing to run in the sun to
grow to become a majestic oak, the god that was my father was made man. While the majority of my time was spent in
the light, it was a place where his shadow continued to exist.
So with age, steps into the darkness were taken. In the darkness there is no shadow. Conversely however, there is also no light. A fumbling stumbling search for tools had to be
made. Tools were found and a was fire was prepared. In the dancing orange reflections on the wall of my cave I realized that it
was my father who had prepared me the whole time to create my own fire as he had remembered his own vision quest he made in the darkness. His own ramshackle search for tools his father had left in the darkness.
Well, then it happened. The moment when I carried
my own child in my arms. The cacophony of
feelings confronted me from such a seemingly small weight in my hands. I knew that I would be responsible to keep
that tender light in his eyes. I knew
that it would be up to me to strengthen the clutch of the tiny fist that blindly
grabbed at my finger. His wailing
desperate cry would have to be filled with words that cried his own song. As his mother had given him life, I would
have to call the tiny child to life. If
I did my job correctly, as I hoped I would, I would make my job as a parent
obsolete. A weight that was as light as
a feather, but as heavy as a mountain began to fill me. That’s
what the Japanese would say. I will
leave off the part that this was the oath taken by Kamakazie pilots. That’s not the important thing.
The important thing is what
happened next. As I stood, tenderly
clutching the newly born in my hands on the tiled floor of the hospital a new
shadow was created; that of me and my child.
I knew that it would be my job to help my son be able to stand on his
own, to create his own shadow.
