Father's Day Thoughts

It's been almost 2 years since the old man passed away. He was an odd one- he always said that he didn't want a gift for Father's Day, but still I would try to do some things for him. It didn't matter much, really, since one of the things we shared was the joy of spontaneity. It was never about Father's Day - it was about the little stuff throughout the year. It was about the little touches done just because it was nice.

Picking up a sandwich for him on the way back from work, unannounced - there was a 50% chance he would complain about something on it, but he was happy that I thought of him. Picking up a 4 wheel drive magazine for him if I saw one - he loved his 1978 Power Wagon, though it rusted away in the yard - a part of my childhood which he sold before he died. The story is that he bought it for my grandfather back then, to bring it down to Trinidad - but he never got done with the project. I don't know that my grandfather really wanted that CB, the huge bumper, the 4 inch lift kit or those Desert Dogs tires - not to mention the roll bar. Maybe he did, but the abandon with which my father 'played' with that truck was infectious. He'd grown up driving my grandfather's Dodge. He got a new Dodge. I was later to get my own Dodge Dakota - and I chose Dodge why? Well, a family history. My Dodge, however, was a constant problem. My father attributed it to the Mitsubishi parts.

So we played with vehicles, we tinkered. I was brought up to tinker, to fix, to keep things going. Make things better. It isn't a bad way to live, but when you can't fix things - it weighs on you. Despite the sandwiches and other small touches, there was always a distance between us which deepened as we both grew older... he more set in his ways, and myself in my own ways. This is a mistake many people make - they will say that 'someone is becoming older', but they fail to recognize how they changed as well. Life changes people - some more than others, depending on what they have seen and what they have done. My father had his formative points, as do I - I continue to have my formative points, he decided to break the habit.

Last year, as all of this was bubbling in the cast iron pot on the right back burner, I was contacted by his fraternal brothers from Stevens Tech. We corresponded for a while... sharing stories, all of us learning something from the exchange. Perhaps the most important thing I learned from all of that was that my father had once been a young man - younger than I. That he had dreams, and that he sacrificed those dreams and always regretted that. Sometimes I think that it wasn't his body that gave out - sometimes I think that we all hunch over under the weight of lost dreams until one day they stop us from moving. That is one way to look at it.

But it is Father's Day. What does that mean? I suppose, for those of you who are in the group whose fathers are alive - I suppose it means that the value of Father's Day is the sum of every day which is not Father's Day... just like any other 'special' day. This adds up to weeks, months, years, decades and sometimes centuries... there is no empirical way to value, depth and strength of a relationship. You either see it every day, or you don't.

Happy Father's Day. And more importantly, the days in between.