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OF MY FATHERS
Tuesday July 21, 2015
One scene – sister calling another, advising their father had died.
That look, those emotions, reached out to me …
Most of Trainwreck (the movie), now a short-term summer tickle.
That scene replays, resonates, another Saturday night, my dad’s death … déjà something.
I don’t have siblings. Not that I don’t appreciate them – just never had that gift/constraint of life so many know. My dad, was 12th of 12. I was 1st of 1. But I digress …
There was no calling for me to do.
I’ve wondered how I would have handled either end of such a scene, what that call would be like.
How powerful it was to be there.
How empty if I had not …
Sitting there, watching him breathe. Snoring. Fading from steady to weak, from weak to barely, from barely to not. Peaceful silence.
Many days, I wish I could talk to him.
Not to speak the unsaid.
To enjoy more time.
July 21 was his birthday.
I don’t remember him more, or less, on this day. Seems fitting to put these words to paper now – this date. This day he began living is more important than when his body stopped.
In my memory – in ways I least expect – he lives again, still.
Sometimes I ponder if I ever really understood how his dad lived on within him.
I saw it in many ways. We didn’t speak of that often …
Here I am, product of them, and what am I?
Who am I?
Who were they?
Are we all suspended in space somehow, dead ones connected with live ones with threads of character, personality and memory?
Mark Kolke
written / published from Calgary, AB
morning walk: 16C/60F, clear/dark when we walked at 5AM, another warm/sunny typical July day with cooling thunderstorms predicted to close out the afternoon, just like yesterday. Gusta went for the muck - sniffing new trees installed yesterday while I lumbered along, Achilles paining still but better than yesterday …
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