Thursday, June 18, 2009

Father's Day

This Father's Day I want my Dad to yell at me. I want him to pace a room at four o'clock in the morning demanding to know where I've been. I want him to carry on red in the face arms flailing and vocabulary mind blowingly complex handing down incredible consequences. I want him to explain ad nauseum why what I did was stupid and how I am lucky to be alive.

I want him to stare me right in the face and tell me he is disappointed in me and send me to my room.

I want to remember what it felt like to doubt he loved me, to believe he never understood, to think he was wrong and incredulous.

That ignorance wasn't bliss but it was easier. The power of love, the guilt for what I put him through and the acknowledgement of how right he was is the hardest and most important lesson of my life.

Now all he does is tell me I'm beautiful and how proud he is. Now all he does is wish I called more and more and more. The only time he raises his voice is in excitement when I see him. He isn't some tower of muscle with an acre of shoulders and power, he's a gray haired old man who needs help walking straight. So I put my arms around his small shoulders and support him. The shoulder's I sat on for years, the ones that straightened me out.

I love you Dad.

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