07 MayOn Becoming My Dad

Anyone old enough to be married with children knows the joke, “ . . . and that’s when I realized I sounded just like my dad (or mom).” Some of you know what I mean—you hear yourself say to your son or daughter, “winners don’t quit,” or “no dessert until you eat your vegetables” and you freeze as you realize that was your dad’s voice coming out of your mouth. I must have experienced that at some point in my life. The problem is, I am old enough now that I can’t remember when it happened. Now I have a more advanced issue; it’s no longer a matter of sounding like my dad but becoming him.

My dad passed away five years ago. We had had a good relationship and so my thoughts often turn to pleasant memories of him. When I was young, I remember my dad being strong and courageous. I sincerely felt he could beat up any other dad, or at least he would live forever. Then I grew up, married, and had children. My children grew up. My dad, he got older. We regularly wrote letters to each other. A common subject in his letters were the walks he went on for his health. His pride in his three miles walks was a far cry from when I remember him pulling boulders out of a mountain by hand to build the trail or raising towers made of pine poles lashed together with rope at Boy Scout jamborees.

Today, as I walked on my two mile walk for exercise, I realized I’m the same age my dad was when he described his walks to me. I have children the age I was then. It was an epiphany. It’s not that I felt like I now understood my dad. No, it’s more like space and time had shifted—I had become my dad.

I was in high school in the 1970s. On dark winter mornings my radio alarm would go off.  I would listen to some of that great 70’s music (‘Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting’ or ‘The Streak’) before sitting up and looking out my second-floor window at the snow falling under the streetlamp on the corner. Putting on a turtleneck and my favorite bell bottoms I would make my way downstairs where I would find a bright, warm kitchen and my dad at the stove. On a bad day he would try once again to get me to eat boiled wheat like he had as a kid. On regular days, which were all good, he would serve me pancakes, or eggs, or bacon, or all three. I didn’t know it then but seeing him in the kitchen was a foundation stone in my day. His presence in the morning meant that all was right in the world.

The other morning, I was at the stove. The kitchen was dark because I had neglected to turn on the light depending instead upon the rays of sunrise coming through the window. I heard my son, my youngest child, in the next room.  I poured the batter on the cast iron skillet and then cracked an egg. The quality of light changed. I looked up to find I was in a bright yellow kitchen. Glancing out the window it was dark. I saw snow falling under the light of the streetlamp on the corner. Out of the corner of my eye I saw . . . me walk into the kitchen, young, skinny, clueless as to what life would bring. I blink and then see my son leaning over the counter to see what I’m cooking.

He says, “I hope those are for me.”

My dad doesn’t say anything, but he smiles as he slides the pancakes, and then the egg, onto my son’s plate. I’m thinking, Oh, Dad. If I had only known. What is it I wished I had known? What possibly could I have wished to know when I was sixteen? I’m sure I wouldn’t have come up with a question that really mattered. If I were smarter then, perhaps I would have wondered what it was to be my dad. Funny how life works. Now I know. And that is enough.

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