I recently saw this post on the Newscut Blog by Bob
Collins. It got me to
thinking. I have seen pictures of
my dad when he was younger than I am now.
In fact, I once made a lamp for him and my mother made from slides from
when they were first married. It
didn’t occur to me then, but now I am a couple years older than he was in those
old photos. I’ve heard stories
from when he was younger than me.
The only problem with this is, the things people tell stories about are
the exceptional things: great accomplishments,
life-altering journeys, epiphanies, and the like. I don’t feel my personal story-worthy life events even
compare with what I knew about my dad when I turned 19 and moved into my first
apartment. He was an Infallible
Elder to me then. All of the
wonderful, relatable things I know about him, the things that have made us peers,
I’ve learned since then. I’ve
learned that we’re a lot more alike than I ever assumed growing up. I remember going to a Twins game with
him and my friend Jill at the HHH Metrodome and having Jill tell me afterwards
how weird it was to see the two of us sitting together, both leaning forward,
arms on our knees, fingers interlocked, our weight on the balls of our feet, in
the exact same pose as one another without intending it. It was made more noticeable by the fact
that white guys with beards tend to look alike, but at age 23 I was already
becoming my father.
You think by the time you move out of your parents’ house
that you know everything there is to know about these people who raised
you. I know I did. After all, I’d spent every day of my
life either with them or in relation to them. What I hadn’t considered was that they hadn’t spent their every day in relation to me. They
had a whole life together before I came along. A life when they made some of the same choices and mistakes
that I have since made, because there are certain lessons that cannot be
taught, but must be learned.
When I was 20 I moved to California, and my dad helped me
get there. When you spend two and
a half days in a truck cab with someone, sleeping in rest stops with all your
possessions just behind the back wall, there’s no way to not learn a few new
things about them. On that trip I
learned about Dad's college weekend road trips, but also that he had a lot more
wisdom to impart than just how to use a band saw (although this has proven helpful too). That trip is also
why, when Mom tells me that Dad is driving solo from my sister’s house in
Seattle to my parents’ home in Tucson, I don’t worry. I still want my mother to check in when I know she’s on the
road. Dad I know I don’t need to
worry about on crazy feats of endurance travel. I’ve seen the man do it.
After I bought a house back in Mpls, Dad came north to help
me paint it. I recall coming home
one day to find he had climbed up the ladder to the porch roof with the
six-foot A-frame ladder over his shoulder. He had then propped the A-frame against the side of the
house on the pitched roof to hang onto my louvered attic vent with one hand and
use the other hand to paint the peak of the gable of my house (I assume he did
this while I was at work because he knew I’d talk him out of it if I were
home). That is something I would
never do. Not for anyone. I don’t necessarily have a fear of
heights, I just don’t trust my own sense of balance that much. If he ever asked, though, I’d do it for
Dad. Because I know he’d do the
same for me, and has. I won’t go
into specifics, because I don’t want to give him ideas, but there are countless
things that I’d never dream of doing ordinarily that I wouldn’t hesitate to do
for my father. When someone has
your back like that, you have to reciprocate. The man taught me how to be me, for god’s sake. You can’t ever hope to repay that – all
you can do is pay it forward.
Thanks, Dad. I love
you. Happy Father’s Day.
