This evening, I am having a cup of this morning's coffee, and I am thinking about my father.
It's been more than eight years since I last spoke to him. He crosses my mind about once a week, maybe twice. Some odd thing will remind me of some event from my childhood, and I will recall how he looked at that particular moment, or how his voice resounded in whatever space tried to enclose him. He was a pretty good Dad, as far as anyone could hope to be a good Dad to me, helion that I was. He was always supportive of whatever wild notion entered my young mind, whether it was the time I developed an interest in American football without bothering to develop a talent for it, or the year that I took up my first instrument and filled the house with the joyful sounds of a beginning trumpeter which, if you have never had the pleasure of enduring, are remarkably similar to a congested elephant crying out in desparation for someone to please God just shoot it and end it's suffering. Dad was a patient and longsuffering man. He took me to Boy Scout meetings, ate my cooking every Father's Day without complaint, accepted the ill-considered Christmas gifts without so much as a puzzled look, and somehow survived my teenage years, and the [ahem] relationships that I went through while somehow keeping both of us from incurring either permanent scars or prison records.
Then, not long after I had gotten married myself, my parents ended their thirty-year relationship. Soon after that, I lost touch with him. We lived in different parts of the world, at times at almost exact opposite sides, and priorities seemed to shift. Once a year or so, I would send off an e-mail, and I would get a reply, and I would send off another, but it generally ended there.
I know right where he is. I know how to reach him. But, somehow, I get the impression he would rather leave things as they are. I feel somewhat sad about it. You see, I rather think I've turned out to be a decent human being, and I think it would be nice if he could share in the benefit of having raised one. Admittedly, I am a bit selfish about the whole thing, too. Even though I am ever so much older than twenty by now, I still sometimes would like to have a father around to talk things over with.
Well, I think I've said about all I can say on that topic for now. I may revisit it one day. And Dad, if you ever see this, no hard feelings, eh? I still love you.