Don’t forget, we’re all counting on you.
“Talk To You Later.”
You really do think, when you say it, that you’re always gonna be able to talk to your dad later, like you always have.
You say it instinctively, at the end of every FaceTime or phone call.
You say it instinctively, because you’ve learned over the years that instincts are both bred into you, and taught to you. They’re born into you from him, and they’re taught to you from him.
We wouldn’t always do that more formal dance, my dad and I, the “I love you,” with a quick, natural pause, followed by the “love you, too.”
Most of the time, almost all of the time for the last thirty years, when our contact was almost completely by telephone, we’d say “talk to you later.”
When you say it, you absolutely never think “that’s the last time I’ll ever say that to him.”
Because you just can’t.
You can’t imagine it because you shouldn’t have to imagine it.
No one should.
You’re always gonna talk to him later.
He’s your dad.
Until one day, he decides he isn’t gonna talk to you later. He isn’t going to talk to anyone later. He’s tired and done and just can’t do it anymore. So he ends it.
And he’s gone.
Happy Father’s day, dad.
You’ve been gone 867 days, and I miss you.
It’s funny, the missing you, because you know I see you almost every day. I see you both in your 20 year old grandson and, maybe more surprisingly, your four year old granddaughter, but mostly, I see you in myself.
I catch myself standing in the kitchen the way you used to, and I find myself wanting to spell cool with a K. I find myself trying to listen to Vinnie off at college on the phone, the same way you would listen to me on the phone; the nods, the “uh-huhs,” and the “that’s kools.”
I hear you grunt when picking up my daughter; but the sound is coming from my mouth. “Ugh,” I sigh, “I’m getting old,” and I swear you’re talking through me. These are your words coming out of my mouth, echoing across decades.
I see you in the mirror, now too, my face aged like yours. Your sister told me last time I saw her, “my god, you look so much like your father.” Wrinkles, tired eyes, grey highlights feathered into my hair.
Most of all, I miss talking to you. Knowing you’d be there, knowing mostly what you’d say before you say it, but still possessing the ability to surprise me.
I wish I could talk to you later.
I have a voicemail my dad sent me years ago that I think fully captures him as a dad.
I listen to it regularly, it’s so good.
It’s one of those things we still, to this day, quote around the house. My wife says she’s full of the funnies. If either of us are going anywhere, one might say “Take me, I’m funnnn,” both in a kind of fake-Joe voice.
“Pad, you’re going to Las Vegas! I want to go, take me, I’m funnnn!
What are you doing out there, is this business, or goofin’ off?
Let me send you this thing, here, another funny—I am filled with the funnies.
I love you and I’ll talk to you later.