I Miss My Dad

I miss my Dad

There are two distinct and separate stages in a son’s relationship with his father. One, where the son refuses to acknowledge the possible existence that any useful information or advice could possibly come from his father, the other, when his father is dead.

There are of course, exceptions to this rule that prove the rule, but for the most part, fathers are disregarded and disrespected until sufficient time passes after their death, and as sure and taxes and death, the son realizes the loss of a source of information unique in all the world. I’m sure there are plenty of Robert Young imitators out there, but for the most part fathers and sons communicate about as well as someone speaking in Swahili to someone who only communicates using sign language. Actually, if you can visualize people trying to communicate in foreign, non-English speaking countries, you get the idea. Use gestures and talk louder. Dad and I were like that a lot.

Part of the reason, researchers say, is the placement of the blank look gene in every male at birth and of course, the head slapping gene. Many times I would listen to my dad explain something about carpentry or such, and my blank look gene would cause his head slapping gene to kick into gear. Son, he’d say, try not to drill through your hand instead of the wall, blank look, head slap. Every time.

This became our frequent ritual during my childhood and teens until I entered that twilight area of my later teens where he felt obliged to offer advice, which pretty much guaranteed I would do something else, anything else.

Somewhere along the line, he stopped giving advise or discussing much with me, and probably saved himself some kind of brain injury from all that head slapping, or the other potential injury from rolling his eyes into his head.

We moved on with our separate lives and I did what I thought was best and lived with the results, for about forty years.

Dad’s been gone five years. I didn’t think I’d ever admit it to anyone, including me, but I really miss the old guy. He was thirty two when I was born, so he had a lot of life experience and practice when I arrived. He was a handy guy, and to my eye then, never made any mistakes.

Because of the gap in our ages, it would be great if I could ask him what being sixty plus is like. Or, now that I’m over sixty, I could ask him what seventy or eighty is like. In his later years he became quite a story teller. He was a good cook, a good host and had lots of useful tidbits about life, that would have been great to hear and remember, if my IQ higher than tapioca gene had kicked in.

So, like many sons, I’ll struggle along with trying to guess the future. Too embarrassed to ask friends for advise, and too proud to admit I don’t know the answers. I like to think Dad’s up there looking down at me, hoping I’ll figure out the answers and trying to tell me that all fathers, and sons who become fathers, walk this final path alone.

Oh, and he’s slapping his head, I have no doubt.