Here I Am.

It’s the fifth Father’s Day without you being a part of my life and as time goes on, it’s not your absence that bothers me, it’s the fear that I’m forgetting your presence.  I try always to remember things, remember what I admired about you, what your voice sounded like when you were happy and how you cried without shame, what your hands looked like after years as a carpenter, always covered in cuts and bruises and a purple nail, and the way you cooked my favorite meals. Last month, as I prepared to move into my newest apartment, I dug through those boxes again, the ones of everything you left behind, trying to decide what, if anything, I’d like to bring with me, to hang, display, to perch on my desk and bookshelf, to pass my fingers over when I need to touch something you loved.  I picked a few things, all of your little Buddha statues, some scarves, your records, books that reminded me of you but not too much. 

If you had told me 5 years ago that I’d be doing this, be looking through your belongings with the apathy that one feels at a garage sale, I would never have believed you.  I grew up for 20 years with a dad who, sober or not, was present at most of my concerts and school events.  Who told me often he was proud of me and loved me so, who made me feel no less than certain that he’d be in my life forever. 

But here I am, and here we are.  I can now look at your stuff, or my stuff I suppose, and feel okay. These are things.  Things you didn’t care for enough to take with you when you left in so much of a hurry that you never told me goodbye.  Things I had given you for your birthday only days before.  Things I never wanted for myself but with which I now cannot bear to part.