My dad is tougher than your dad. Yep. I speak the truth, so don’t even try to talk to me about it. My dad is taller than your dad, he’s funnier, and cooler, and you know what? He’s smarter, too. There’s proof. Uh huh, shut up there is!
My dad once swam across White Bear Lake with two of his kids clinging to his back—just for fun. And then there’s the time he threw a softball way the hell down Arcade Street. It was almost bar time so there weren’t any cars out, a warm summer night at Vogel’s Bar. All the guys went out there and bet on him, some one way, and some the other.
It’s important to get the facts straight and keep the myths alive, because dad is sick, and he’s not getting better. He’s getting ready to graduate to the Promised Land. The rest of us, his wife, his kids, grandkids, his sisters, and mother, we’ll be left behind to do the remembering.
My dad is here, for now. He wakes up and he goes to sleep, such as it is with his illness. He sometimes sits in a lazy-back chair where his feet don’t touch the ground. It is not comfortable. My dad is brave. He can hear and speak and see and eat and sometimes he is right there with you, and sometimes he’s not. He holds dear the sound of our mother’s voice. When he hears it, he knows where he is, at least; he’s with her, and he loves her. There might come a time when he no longer recognizes her voice, and will have to take solace in touch. Like we all did, at first.
My dad’s hands are thick and hard. They are the kind of hands that have always worked. He can kill mice with his bare hands. He can kill bats with a tennis racket. My dad would never play tennis. But he would kill a bat for you anytime. No trouble at all.
My dad is very handsome, and wore a white dinner jacket à la James Bond to his wedding. He was most comfortable, and equally as handsome, in blue jeans. Once, a long time ago, I made my dad a pair of ugly slippers out of potholders. He could look good in anything.
My dad has a heart of steel. People who know him appreciate the design. The flaws, the dings and scratches, only accentuate the authenticity of a classic. He loves his family, a fine meal, and a good laugh. He loves it when a job is well done and the bills are paid. His resting pulse is forty. My dad’s heart is like a powerfully built muscle car. A ’74 Mustang or maybe a mint ’79 Ford F-150.
My dad knows things before anybody else does. If something bad is going to happen to you, say you’re about to get screwed on a used car or your rain gutters are loose, he’ll be the first to warn you of impending danger. If you don’t listen to him, then that’s your problem. What is he? Your mother?
My dad is a superhero. One time my dad’s car got stuck deep in some mud, and he lifted the whole front end of the car out of the rut. No kidding. If you ask our mom about it, she shrugs it off. “It was a Volkswagen.” My dad does things that you should not try at home.
Recently, I related the Volkswagen story to my husband. He gave me a sweet sideways half-smile, a look I know too well. It means he doesn’t believe me. Since I am the Prime Minister of Exaggeration, there are grounds for this breach of faith. My husband knows my dad is a good guy, an honorable guy, but also a human guy like the rest of us. My husband also knows that one of my recent hobbies is to babble on about my dad in order to stave off the tide of anxiety I feel about losing him, so he draws me close. “Tell me some more about your dad.”
And in those indulgent arms I gabble, remembering everything I can, working around what I can’t. Every word of homage and praise a qualifier for sainthood.
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