this is for the people who voted yes on instagram (@summerof1999blog) to me posting this unedited
and anyone else who loves me enough to read this whole thing, or at least part of it xoxo
We
grow up to the tune of Don Williams and Bruce Springsteen blaring from Dad’s
old white truck as he mowed the yard. It’s spring, and life is young and fresh
and, well, alive. The grass seems to be growing faster than Dad can cut it. Mom
won’t stop pointing out the red buds that I insist are purple. The birds can’t
keep quiet with their same tunes over and over in the morning, and I love it.
Dad sings as he mows and takes breaks to beat us in basketball once again.
“Learn to lose when you’re young, and you’ll appreciate the winning when it
comes later on, when you’ve worked for it,” he’d say.
I wake up in the morning early for
breakfast, pulling my favorite ugly t-shirt over my head, eager to get my
school done with as mom taught me, on the edge of my seat to get outside, rain
or shine, to get my hands and feet dirty. Barefoot season is coming back,
according to Mom, although I’m not actually sure it ever ended.
The sun starts beating down harder, and another summer is here before we know it. Our feet are hard now. Dad fills up the little pool in the backyard with well water. It’s freezing cold and tinier than any of us remembered, but somehow we manage five people crammed on the kiddie slide between us and our cousins. Our feet pound down the hard packed dirt trail between our houses, unconsciously dodging every memorized stone and root in the way, over the creek, through the woods and into the cornfield. The stalks loom twice as high as us. Hide and Seek Tag in this seems like the best idea since sliced bread (whatever that means), even after the 15 ticks found on each of us afterwards, even with the stalks slapping our faces as we sprint down the slopes and cut between the rows of green.
The sun starts beating down harder, and another summer is here before we know it. Our feet are hard now. Dad fills up the little pool in the backyard with well water. It’s freezing cold and tinier than any of us remembered, but somehow we manage five people crammed on the kiddie slide between us and our cousins. Our feet pound down the hard packed dirt trail between our houses, unconsciously dodging every memorized stone and root in the way, over the creek, through the woods and into the cornfield. The stalks loom twice as high as us. Hide and Seek Tag in this seems like the best idea since sliced bread (whatever that means), even after the 15 ticks found on each of us afterwards, even with the stalks slapping our faces as we sprint down the slopes and cut between the rows of green.
We rush home to Dad washing the cars
before dinner. It has to be getting late, but the light is still so bright and
strong. No, there must be plenty of time left. Dad’s helping us wash, even
though we must’ve added an extra half hour at least to the project. Mom calls
Dad in for supper and we all sprawl out on our ugly maroon couch for Andy
Griffith. Mom says Dad’s tired, and even though he just drank his full mug of
coffee, he’s asleep within ten minutes.
It’s fall now, and the days are getting
shorter, but the trees are brighter in their dying. They scatter themselves all over our yard as
Dad blows them into a pile for us to demolish. We fling ourselves onto the pile
and each other as the leaves twirl lazily back down. The sky is clear, infinite
blue. The sun rests warm on my skin, but the squirrels feel the cool in the air
and scamper around fathering food for the hardest part of the year. We just see
Dad in his old Redskins sweatshirt and hat, and it feels like it’ll last
forever.
Dad always commentates on the
changing trees in fall. His favorites he calls the “Golden Sovereigns”. They’re
tall and yellow gold and always stand out on the gravel road that leads past
our driveway. Sometimes we walk down there to the field, stopping at Mom’s
favorite big oak tree. We sit there on some stumps Dad chopped up when a big
tree fell dangerously close to our house a few years ago. We just sit there and
talk about how we’re going to build all our houses right here near Mom and
Dad’s house. Dad promises to build it for us. We wrap ourselves in his arms and
look up at him in awe.
“Really?” I ask, already knowing the
answer. The sun’s setting, reflecting in his eyes as he looks down at me,
smiling, his face rough and unshaven. I used to call his beard “ewe-y stuff”
when I was younger. He’d tickle me like he was offended and I’d kick and scream
and fight so he wouldn’t stop, because as hard as I fought, I loved every
second of it.
“Yeah, sweetheart,” he says.
“Lord-willing.”
We go through out evening rituals now, wrapping up with Dad reading The
Chronicles of Narnia to us just before bed. He's the best out loud reader
that I've ever heard. As far as I'm concerned, he's pretty much perfect.
He does the voices and the accents and everything. Sometimes, he even makes us
jump out of our sheets at the scary parts. More often though, the sound of his
voice lulls me into a peaceful half rest. I try not to, but sometimes I fall
asleep to the sound of his voice and the fan running in the bathroom.
It feels like I blinked, and it's
already winter. This winter is different than any others before, though. This
one comes too fast with too much rain, too many black clothes, too many drawn
curtains, and aching silence. This Christmas, we sit around at our traditional,
candlelit Christmas Eve dinner with swollen eyes, waiting for the empty chair
at the head of the table to make the first toast to Mom. We suffer our way
through what Dad considered a religious watching of It’s A Wonderful Life. I find myself waiting for Dad’s ridiculous
imitations of the greedy Mr. Potter, and his emotive murmurs of the
meaningfulness of the message. I silently wonder what the world would look like
if Dad had never lived in it, and wish he could’ve seen the difference he made. I wish I’d told him while I could. Every Christmas song on every one of his fifty
Christmas albums reminds me of him. How he knew every song and made up the
lyrics when he didn’t.
I wake up Christmas Eve night with
cold feet, knowing Dad would’ve told me to get some of his wool socks and
wondering who was going to eat the cookies we set out for Santa Claus, who we
always knew as Dad. When all the kids finally wake up, going down the steps for
Christmas morning feels wrong without Dad over in his chair by the fire in his
plaid robe, drinking coffee, and videoing an excessive full hour of us opening
presents and stockings. We put Jesus in the manger, and it’s hard to imagine
something so permanent and unchanging in a world of constant passing and
changing.
It’s not until it finally starts
getting light outside that we realize it’s snowing and has been all night!
There’s a stir of excitement. The youngest are squealing, and Mom’s sending
kids upstairs to get the snow stuff, and we’re shoving the last of the
doughnuts in our mouths from breakfast. And I can’t help but think how Dad
always wanted snow on Christmas. It’s like it was meant for him, just a little
too late. Or maybe for us.
The night had been so dark, but with
the morning came light, and somehow the light was made brighter by the snow
left behind in the storms wake. It was still cold, but maybe the cold was like
the dark and it would pass, too, and spring would come back again, and another
year would come and go, and it would be okay. And maybe, maybe one day, I’ll
see him again soon.
It’s like that Don Williams song he
always loved so much, the one he sang about his mom.
How
can I forget you when there’s always
Something there to remind me …
You’ll always be a part of me
