Not long ago, I outlived my father.
If that sounds strange, believe me, it feels stranger to say it.
And I’m sure it makes me sound old.
Though to me it’s a way of saying he died really young.
And I think both things are correct.
So he was in his mid-40s already when I came along, probably unexpectedly.
I bring this up on Father’s Day not for the sympathy.
Save it for someone who’s not talking about a death in his family decades ago.
The thing about losing a parent young is that all your impressions of them are frozen in time.
In the case of my dad, it’s impressions, really.
But very specific ones.
Nothing else has ever come close.
It was like being in a fort made entirely out of him.
That’s the memory of him I’ve carried ever since.
That’s another thing about losing a parent young.
I’ve got friends whose fathers are still with them.
Who managed to ride out those awkward times and still remain close to this day.
Sometimes three generations of the same family.
Think of it as doing a biography of a historic figure.
You view a man by the way he lived his life.
In his case, how he and his brothers enlisted in the military right after Pearl Harbor.
So he ended up buying the house directly across from his brother and his five kids in Weymouth.
Which was a five minute walk from another of his brothers.
There was the time he let his mother-in-law and Special Needs brother-in-law come stay with us.
So there was nine of us in a four bedroom with one bath.
So I was cool with that.
She told me about another uncle of mine who dropped dead in the middle of cheating on my aunt.
And driving home a point about what it means to be devoted to someone.
My brothers and I inherited two traits from our father.
The first is a thick, lustrous mane of prematurely grey hair.
If we got nothing else from him, that’ll do.
Still I’ve got a million questions that will never be answered.
Was he ever scared about having a family of seven to support?
Did he dream about retirement or travel or dancing at his kids' weddings?
I hope the answer is yes to all.
But I’d just be guessing.
Or pretend I knew when I had no clue.
I remember buying my first car.
At the end of the transaction the dealer asked who my insurance agent was.
I had no clue what he was talking about.
Until he got in the guy’s face and screamed at him to back off.
That he didn’t know because he didn’t have anyone in his life to tell him.
So thanks for letting me work out my crippling Daddy Issues.
Every once in a while I write something just for me.
Because I don’t believe it gets the respect it deserves.
You’ve got to go back about 30 years, minimum.
But I didn’t think there’d be so many steps I’d have to learn on my own.
So I’ll do what I can.
I’ll walk like a man.
