I’ll be back home taking in Parisian Christmas markets by the 17th of December. To say I cannot wait to get home is a bit of an understatement right up there with I hope I wish the United States hadn’t lost it’s goddamn mind.
But what are you gonna do?
I’m gonna go home to Paris. I literally just told you. Please do try and keep up.
There is a point to singling out the 17th of December this particular year and it has to do with math. You see, on November 19th I will have been without my father for 18 years. The first few I spent drunk and finding interesting ways to fuck up my life while alienating all the people guilty of the crime of loving me. And though I have been sober almost twelve years now the void left by my father’s absence is as big as Uranus.
Don’t act like you didn’t laugh and roll your eyes at that.
He was my center. From the moment I was born to the moment he breathed his last he was the single constant throughout my life. My rudder, my sails, my true north were all gone in the instant it took for him to hit that brick wall and close his eyes for the last time.
On September 20th, 1972 he turned 18 years old. On October the 18th, 1972 he became a father. For the first eighteen years and (almost) one month of his life he didn’t know me. He was all of fifty-two years old by two months. I am fifty-two years old and (almost) one month. On December 17th(ish) it will be eighteen years and (almost) a month that I will have lived in a world without him.
This is the nonsense that I wake up and ponder at 0300. I lay there in the dark, listen for my wife’s breathing before reaching for her just to be doubly sure she’s really there and then I just … wonder.
Have I don’t what my dad would have wished for his oldest son in the eighteen years and (almost) one month that I have lived in the time that he has been away? Did my dad dream about being a father in his eighteen years and (almost) one month of his life before he ever met me? Would he be proud of me? Would he wonder about the life that I have? I know he would love my wife. I know he would call her mija and make corny jokes and remind her that if I ever fuck things up with her he’s available. Did he spend those eighteen years and (almost) one month dreaming about a woman who would call him on his bullshit? Did he imagine playing baseball for the Dodgers (I know the answer to that one)?
Eighteen years and (almost) one month without my only constant marched painfully slow at first. Then it passed all at once.
What you did with that life after your first eighteen years and (almost) one month turned me into everything that I am now. Sure, there are some things I’ve had to unlearn, but I can also state unequivocally that whatever good there is in me I get from you, dad.
I just wish you were still here to see it.
I love you. I miss you. Always.
