It Only Takes Eight Years....

As is the custom, when I talk about the anniversaries of my dad's or mom's deaths, I'm not DNA, I'm just me.

Eight years ago, October 28th, 2001, my dad died from an aggressive brain tumor. Every year, I have attempted to recall some memory or story that would give you an idea of how much my dad meant to me. This year, I was discussing with my wife that on the actual anniversary day, I completely forgot it was the anniversary. I had thought about dad passing away in October all October, but it wasn't until Halloween that I remembered that I forgot!

So, eight years is what it takes. Kind of like the answer to the tootsie pop question. Eight years is what it takes to allow a memory of an important thing to occupy less of a prominent position in a person's mind. At least for me. As I was talking to my wife, and trying to think of a story to tell you in this blog, she told a story about dad and how he acted with my son Carl, which was more personal than she could have known, because her recollection of how dad acted with Carl were so similar to one of my own memories of how my dad acted with me that it freaked me out a little. There in the car, as our family was motoring across the river Sunday after church, I was brought back in time as surely as if H.G. Welles were writing my story.

In the car, I say that I just realized I forgot the anniversary of my dad's death. We discussed it for a bit, and one of my daughters say that it's not fair that they didn't get to know Grandpa, but Carl did. Carl doesn't say much. It still bothers him more than he is comfortable talking about. Lara and I talk about Carl and my dad together, and Lara remembers how we never used to make a bed for Carl when we visited the grandparents, because Carl and dad used to stay up late and watch cartoons together, and Carl would curl up in the space at the end of the couch behind the crick of dad's knees as he lay on the couch. He would get one of the afghans folded nicely over the cushions of the couch and use that for his blanket, and slowly drift off to sleep sometime before dawn.

While we described this, Carl seems surprised because he didn't remember staying up late with Grandpa like that. Then, a light dawns in his mind, and he says that he remembers watching a cartoon that looked like a talk show with a superhero on it (Space Ghost Coast To Coast), which they did watch very often. He seems glad to recall another memory of his Grandpa, and while he is enjoying a moment or two of his Grandpa's presence, I am transported back 40 years, to the same place.

Though the couch was different, and the TV shows were different, I remember that living room like it was yesterday, those Saturday nights when I would make my way downstairs, unable to sleep, and curl up at the end of the couch. Dad would be home, and so used to working the third shift, that even after a hard day of work at home, he couldn't sleep at night. I would gently step over dad's outstretched legs, and worm my cold little feet behind or under his backside. I would tuck his gnarled old feet under my arm or put them up against my chest, and warm them up. Sometimes he would stir, but sometimes he would act like I wasn't there, and we would stay up and watch bad movies, re-runs of wrestling, or Don Kirschner's Rock Concert on the TV.

I have three very early clear memories, say, from about two to three years of age. The first is going to the hospital when my mom had her hysterectomy. The second was watching the first moon landing on TV. The third was being at home with my dad one time when he was sick (a very, very rare occurrence) and being curled up on the couch with him.

When I look at my son, I see me, my dad, and a line of people back to the origins of humanity. I see sons trusting their fathers and fathers protecting their children and some kernel of that experience surviving in an unbroken bond of what it means to be a father from then until now. I consider it an honor to be entrusted with the duty to keep this bond alive, and in so doing, keep my father, and his father, and those before us alive in thought as well as in deed. Whether or not you believe in an afterlife, this bond is a very real expression of eternal life, and is as tangible in our lives as is the dna of my dad's which I carry in my genes. There is so much of dad in me, and nearly as much in my son.

The gulf of time seems like a very small divide today.