Letter to dad...
Dear Dad,
How do I write this letter? What do I say to you? In the most sincere way, F*$# ^&%!!! You know, I’m 32 years old. I’ve had to deal with no dad for three decades. I know that “f*$#^&%” is a little harsh. I will give you that, but I look at my sons and wonder what you could have possibly been thinking, (or not thinking.) I can’t really understand why you could not suck it up and lose yourself and be my dad. You’ve got balls bigger that anybody I know. Giving me this crap about being mad because I haven’t been responding to you. Have you earned anything less? You wrote that maybe you’ve missed a birthday or two. How about twentyfive or thirty? I know that you did heroine when I was a little boy and had no concern for anything else but riding that horse, but it’s hard for me to forgive you. I have two sons and I love them. I want the best for them.
I really believe that when I lived with you, you had the best of intentions but your delivery was so freakin’ jacked up that nothing was accomplished. I hated living with you. Most 11 year old boys fantasize about older girls or new bikes or whatever. My fantasy was that my mother would some day be sitting on the corner in her Celica, waiting for me to get out of class, and she would take me away from you.
But you know the funny thing? I loved going camping with you. In retrospect, I loved caddying for you. I loved when we had to go somewhere and I got to ride with MY dad and we drove in his red Land Cruiser. I also remember living in El Paso. I remember your groovy El Camino and your Irish Setter, and how we would drive out on dirt roads with that dog following as we sped along. I was terrified by the speed and the fact that surely, that damn dog would get run over! I can remember one hot day in El Paso when you took me to Dairy Queen and introduced me to that ice cream cone covered in a crunchy butter scotch shell. Or how about the day I was walking your Irish Setter. As we approached the house some eight or ten houses away, you called your dog. And that dog dragged me down the street, a full three quartes of a block on my belly, wanting nothing more than the praises of his owner.
Oh yes, I also remember the smell of your room and your clothes. God in heaven! How I loved that smell in your room with all your clothes tossed everywhere, and the window covered with red blankets or whatever you had on them, creating that mysterious ‘dads room glow’. When I was five years old, living with you and grandma and grandpa, you brought home a Darth Vader model and we built it together. Actually, you built it and I got to put the glow-in-the-dark light saber in Vaders right hand. And that same year, you taught me how to gamble. The only thing is, you knew that you could win but you made me put all my money in the pot anyway. Through a few hands of poker or blackjack, you took all of my cash and I cried. You just laughed and took my cigar box with the few dollars that I had, until Grandma found out what was going on. She was pretty peaved at you and made you give my money back!
I remember your parents back yard, and their garden, and the sweet smell of the lawn clippings piled in the back left corner of the yard behind the shed. The stone walls, grandpas garage with all his wood working tools and projects, the vines growing all over the front porch that had the sweetest smell that I can remember. I recall going up on the roof via the big tree in the front yard and having grandma yell at me and Andy, the kid down the street to be careful, “and you get down from there!” Why, I was on top of the world. I could see two blocks over and I could see the girl on the corner’s house, the one I had a crush on. I could see her roof and back yard and everything.
When the carnival came to town, you took me. Right there in El Paso, Texas, United States of America. At first I didn’t think you were up for it because it had just rained and I had to beg you. But, you seemingly gave in. The sweet smell of the desert air after a summer rain made my head giddy! We were going to the carnival!! Joy of all joys for a five year old! When we began to get close after walking who knows how many blocks I almost couldn’t contain myself. We approached from the direction in which we had been walking and had to cut through all the trailers and trucks that had hauled all those contraptions out to the parking lot where the carnie was set up. About half way through the maze of trailers you told me that you had to check on something. “Stay right here. Don’t talk to anyone and don’t you dare go anywhere without me.” So I sat down in the dirt. And I waited. And my little soul was so excited because I would be getting to ride the rides and see the lights in no time! Gosh, it’s been such a long time. Where could my dad have gone? I’m kind of worried about him. Is he OK? Where is he? When are we gonna’ get to go see the lights and hear all the sounds and ride that big ass ferry wheel thing? Oh, there he is. Stumbling out from behind that trailer. “Come on Michael, we’re going home.” Going home? But we haven’t ridden anything. We’re so close. Just forty or fifty more feet and we’ll be there. We’re way too close. SO FUCKING CLOSE THAT IT HURT!!! And you know, it still hurts, thirty years later. I cried all the way home. Not just some whiny meandering weeping, but deep down, gut wrenching crying and sobbing. I hated you on that day. It amazes me as I sit here and think back about the smallest things and I think about the greatest things. And I think about those times and occasions that make you or break you.
There was that day you found me behind 7-11. You know the store, right next to Whataburger. I was in the back in an empty store room that everyone used for a toilet. Some other kids and I had just stolen a bunch of those little balsa wood airplanes. We were so excited! Suddenly there you were. Finally showing up for something. But you didn’t do anything. You chided me about not stealing, but ultimately you didn’t do shit. I needed a wall to ram against, a boundary that should not have been crossed and you gave me hot air and empty emotion.
One summer when I was eleven you took me camping high up in the mountains of Colorado. We went with two or three of you buddies and their women. The beauty of those mountains still puts me in a state of awe, even now as I remember them. The powerful mountain river where we fished for trout was incredible. The sun shined clearer that day than any other by which my memories serve me. And the river pounded the boulders that we perched on, a cool breeze took the edge off the summer heat and my skin grew a shade darker that day. There were fish living in the midst of that rumbling power and we pulled them out with our fishing poles and wrapped them in aluminum foil and cooked them in the fire that we had built. The same fire that turned those fishes eye balls into mushy white goop. It was that fire that I managed to pour a Styrofoam cup full of kerosene onto. I got yelled at by some mustachioed friend of yours but no physical harm came to me. I was not burned. And here, years later, my son of five years was trying to pour lighter fluid on our fire last summer at Dogtown lake and he was not burned although he got a wee bit more of a talking to than I ever did.
Well, the next morning those many years ago, my ungoopy eyes were bigger than my belly. I took a serving or two more than I should have of that big frying pan full of scrambled eggs and I did not finish my plate . At the end of my outdoor dining experience, I threw away those precious eggs. And you in all you wisdom just about beat me for that one. We drove home to Grand Junction with me in the back of your Land Cruiser, pressed against the rear door as far away from the drivers seat as possible. You really taught me how to fear another human that day. I truly was terrified, and all for eight or nine mouthfuls of scrambled eggs. I still don’t understand.
All my friends know how to ride motorcycles. Not me. I wasn’t strong enough to pick up the downed cycle, so, I could not be taught how I should or could possibly do it. No help. No hope. No harm. But thanks for that one.
Anyway, I sure can stack a cord of wood properly though. Piece by piece, all alone. And how about numbers. I’ve never really been as good at math as you. Rather than help me to understand what the hell I was doing, you laid down the law. “You will not get off this stool until you finish all these problems. And you will do them all correctly. FIGURE IT OUT!” Thanks for helping me understand things that to this day remain somewhat aloof to me. Maybe you’re the reason why I think math sucks so much???
I’m tired. I don’t want to keep heaping all this shit on you. You have been a very large stone in the middle of every road that I have tried to travel. I continually stumble over you as I try to get further ahead. I want to forgive you and I know I need to, but I stumble and I stumble. I don’t want to push you away. I don’t want to hate you. And I will not make excuses for you like your mother does.
Eventually a man needs to come to a place where he knows who he is. I have so struggled to find that place. The only help you have given me is to see that I will not be you to my sons. I know what it is like to be abandoned with no one. I can’t say you turned your back on me because you never really faced me. At least not like a man. You never guided me. You never taught me to have honor, or integrity, or strength.
How is it that I know how to keep my word to my son? Surely not from your hand. How do I know what it is to die to myself and answer my sons endless questions when there are so many other things to attend to? Not from your example.
I will not be you and yet I desperately want you. I want to have that red Land Cruiser, to take my sons fishing and camping and playing like men need to. I want to build that Darth Vader model and let MY son put the glow-in-the-dark light saber in his right hand.
Father, I am sorry for whatever I did or did not do for you. I’m sorry you did not love my mother. I’m sorry that you never knew what you were doing with me and I forgive you for all this bullshit. I forgive you for the carnival and the eggs and everything else, spoken or unspoken.
I don’t want excuses. I deal with excuses everyday. I just want you to be proud of me. I want you to be proud of the fact that I am an artist, and I am a musician, and I am a father, and I am a husband, and I am a man. I have grown up and I have my own family. I don’t know how much influence you can or will have on me, but I am a man now. I will seek to forgive you and I will seek to love you, although I don’t know how to do this. Alas, you are my father and when I was five, you held me down in my bed and you lifted my shirt up over my face and rubbed your scratchy, unshaven chin on my skinny little belly and I screamed and laughed and tried to wiggle out from under you and that is one of my favorite memories of you and nothing will ever be able to take that away from me. I love you Dad.
Your son,
Michael John
posted by Nait Sirhc @ 7:18 AM
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