surrounded by you

I sit dressed in the shirt off your back and the hat freshly transferred from your bald head to mine, but it is your pen in my hand that brings me closest to you. I don’t really know how to do this, to awaken the scribe caught within, the power of words sincere and so raw, but this is my attempt while time is on our side. Cry as I may, my eyes have seen yours shed tears over words, too, for not a sign of weakness but life, vulnerability, love. Love that is undeniably you and, not to be unwritten, undeniably me. The apple, the fall, the tree as they say.

But who are they anyway, these keepers of the pristine? And what do they know? I’d argue it’s not the unspoken or struggle that makes them whole; rather the shiny and polished that your lessons appropriately painted unrealistic. This notion of perfection and ease falls short on reality when the truth is there are no shortcuts, only the grind, the art showing up. And this attendance, the very act of being there, costs nothing yet yields dividends to the audience so rich the apple doesn’t matter. That is the tree I remember.

To this I give my best shot. I leap into the arena bound only by an attempt. It is my solemn gesture at capturing a moment that harnesses your influences, abundant and deep, unlike the false luxury of time. And it’s time I can’t stop, the hands constant motion. But it is also the same time that binds the tragically lost, the wonderfully found. The magical beauty of time is that has its own limits and has no shame in holding them secret, yet it allows for mere observers to bookmark their memories and etch them into stone. The start. The finish. The space in between. And that is very paradigm I grow equally fearful of and thankful for each day.

Dad, Pops, Poppy, you are my Father, I am your Son and I enter each of these days anew. In them I try to put aside the years on my waist, the wrinkled lines of my face, and turn my focus to the fact I am surrounded by you. Your marks on the bookshelves that hold your thesaurus, the framed walls echoing the soundtrack of hard work, wheelbarrow rides, the calm on the phone, they each exist with the permanence of your fingerprint. And while those are all arguably mine, they are you too, just like the gift of being a father. It is this privilege and its blind journey without recipe and playbook-void, where our final marks on the minds’ scorecard are tallied with balls that were thrown. And throw them we did, until strikes were no more, a bowed-head pubescent left embarrassed, ashamed.

But dejection and shame set the stage for compassion, the fatherly superpower able to cure errant swing planes, fender-benders, hangovers, and bad grades. These swaying leaves on twisted limbs fall and grow back as it is not really the leaf that matters, it is the symbol of another chance.

Try as I may, on the cliffs I have failed, not on wasted canvas but a struggle I simply can’t solve. That’s ok, as you remind me is not the outcome that matters most, but the lessons learned in the attempt. The swings and misses fade. So, whether the at the edge of Ireland or awestruck in Sedona, somewhere between lush green fields and the vibrant red rocks lies the middle ground of indifference marked by the memory of time. Those are mine just as I hope they are for you.

Dad, I raise a toast to you with a promise it’s not last call. As I pass on my fingerprints to you in one of life’s great ironies, may you think of them at each observance and never stop the art of being you. I eagerly await the next update about JB and DM.

 With love always, your son. - Scott