I can see him standing there in the sunlight. He is my creator.
He is the one who helped bring me into this world. He is my first hero. He is my introduction to manhood and mentor, leader, teacher and Father.
I can see him standing in the sunlight and looking out from the shoreline.
The sun is beaming down on him. He has salt and pepper hair that is being swept by the wind.
It is summertime. I am young in this vision; however, as I look at him through my youthful memory, I look at him through the eyes of the man I am today.
I want to go back.
I want to tell him.
I want him to know that I was confused, that I didn’t have the words to explain myself, that I was lost somehow, and that perhaps my thoughts overwhelmed me.
I want to tell him that I didn’t have the ability or the language to explain myself.
But then again, I was only a kid at the time. Yet, I am grown now and almost as old as my Father was when he passed away. Still, there are complexities that come with life. There are challenges. There are heartbreaks and downfalls and struggles and uphill battles. There are unseeable scars and aches or pains that come without a physical explanation.
But still we feel them . . .
I see him standing there in the sunlight. I look at the expression on his face.
I can see the weight on his brow as it folds down atop his eyes, as if to insulate a deeper thought or a challenge that was on his mind.
I want to tell him not to think of those things so much.
“I’m right here.”
Your son.
“Can’t you see me?”
I see him standing as he did one day when I was a small boy.
I went fishing with my Father, The Old Man, during the late chapter of August.
This is when the snappers run in the bay and the fishing is active.
I see his eyes peering out at the water as he stares at the little red and white float that bobs up and down on the surface.
This is a marker of where the bait is and, as well, this is the hint that tells you when the fish are biting because the bobber sinks below the surface when the fish take the line.
I love this sight . . .
The sun is hot and his skin is glistening, olive-like and tanning beneath the sunlight.
The water is warm and with the exception of a few scattered or feather-like clouds that hint the heavens with traces of see-thru cotton, the sky is otherwise clear-blue and perfect for a summer’s morning.
It is quiet in this thought.
I can imagine the sounds as they were, which are calming to me.
I can think of this as it was – the sound of the wind and the little waves in the bay as they rush and splash against the shore.
There is a plane that flies overhead and trails a banner behind it, which was always some kind of advertisement.
I can hear this in my head.
I see him standing there, my Father, The Old Man.
He is too intense for the moment and perhaps his mind is elsewhere.
I want to go back there.
I want to tell him.
I want to let him know . . .
You’re going about this all wrong.
We are all too critical of ourselves, which are lessons that are handed down from generations of misunderstood aggression and dysfunction.
I want to tell him to steer away from doing the things that he did not like when they were done to him.
I want to let him know that I was trying but no, I was not sure how to pull off a trick. Thus, I was too uncomfortable to settle down or be who I was and feel comfortable in my own skin.
I am small (can’t you see?)
I am weak. (Unlike you)
I am afraid but I wish I knew how to be brave.
(Can’t you see?)
I need your help . . .
But I don’t know how to ask for it.
And you want to help me.
You just don’t know how . . .
I am small in this vision but I am interacting with him now as a grown man, which is crazy to think of this because I am 11 years shy of the age he was when he passed away.
He died around this time, that year back in 1989.
I see him standing with his posture, upright.
He is strong and tall to me; yet, I am taller now than he ever was.
He is the biggest man in the world.
He can fix anything.
He has the answers to everything.
I am looking at him. I admire him.
I love him. However, honesty demands that I have to be true and say that yes – I resent him.
It is not easy to live or to “be” and it is not easy to maneuver or find our way through the twists and turns of life.
Still though –
I want to be like him.
Strong.
I want to know things like he does.
I want to be able to work and build with my hands.
I want to be able to hold it together.
I want to understand the secret of his endurance.
I want him to be proud.
I want him to be happy.
I want him to let the sun heal the unseeable wounds and let the past go.
I want him to relax and let the weight lift from his shoulders.
You don’t have to work today – so?
Why not enjoy the moment?
Let the time be sufficient for itself?
Let the sun warm your skin and waters from the bay cool your feet.
Let the fish run off with your bait and reel them in.
I want to go back to this
I want to let him know that I learned how to live.
I’m still learning, mistakes and all.
I want to let him know how amazing it is to see someone catch a fish for the first time.
Look . . . See?
Don’t you understand?
This is a time that can never happen again.
Then again . . .
It takes a lot of loss to truly find and understand the value of an irretrievable moment.
I know this now.
I wonder though . . .
Did he?
Did he understand the value of a special moment?
Or does the perfection of hindsight change our perspective?
Do you see what I am trying to point out here?
Hindsight – in which case, I mean that in order to gain, we have to understand the value of loss.
I wish I could see him.
I wish you could meet him.
I wish he knew that I knew you and that perhaps I might not have the answers to the questions in life – but then again, neither did he, and neither does anybody.
No one does, at least not really.
We are all moving around in our unique little patterns which is otherwise known as perception and interpretation.
I can see him there – standing with the waters in the bay that rush against him in tiny waves and rise up and down from his ankles and rise to just below his knees.
I am looking at him.
I want him to see me.
I want you to be with me when he does.
I want him to meet you –
This is my dream.
He turns.
His brow lifts from its intensity.
The expression on his face switches over to a lighthearted nature.
He can see us.
There we are –
Fishing together.
He would teach you how.
He would teach you how to cast the line.
He would tell you what to do and he would cheer for you, each time you tossed the line out, just to let you know that no one else in the world existed – and in the moment, he would be with us.
All of us . . .
Together.
I want to take you here, to the place where this happened.
It is winter now and the sky will have a wintery appeal.
Nothing will look like it does in August but we can always return (in the summer).
The trees will be empty of their leaves and the branches, like gnarled fingers of an old hand, will point upwards, gesturing to the sky to which eventually – we both know that the summer will return. And hopefully – so will we.
I want to take you here because this is a real place.
I want you to see this so that you can see me as I was or as I used to be – a small little boy, real as ever, growing, and yes – this is a small part of where I come from which means everything to me.
I want to show you.
I want to experience this with you – a moment beneath the sun, skin tanning beneath its beams of sunlight, which as we look out across the bay, the bright sun shines across the divots of the rippling waters in the bay.
I want to see this.
I want you to see him.
I want him to see you too – standing in the waters with me, sharing this kind of moment, and fishing for the snappers when they run.
They do run, the schools of them are thick – and when they’re hungry – I swear, it’s like a massacre!
(You know?)
I want to do this because I do not want to live life and miss out on moments by overthinking or missing out on say – you and I, together.
The time is all that matters and times like this are to be sufficient for themselves.
Nothing else has to exist.
No one else matters
I want to imagine this for a while longer.
Me . . . with you . . . with him . . .
The Old Man
I wish I could hear your voice right now.
I wish I could tell you.
I wish you knew but again, there are times when life takes place and despite what we know, we lack the ability or the language (or the bravery) to openly communicate and express our true selves.
Pop . . .
I’m sorry you missed out on most of my life.
I wish you could see some of the things that I have built.
I wished I paid better attention to the lessons you tried to teach me but, no differently, I suppose you lacked the ability or the language to explain this to me.
I get it now.
We only have one life
I know that
I wish you could have met him.
I wish we could see the snappers run together.
The three of us,
I have an idea though
Wantagh Park . . .
That’s where we were.
I can meet you there, if you’d like.
And if you say yes . . .
Then consider it a date
For life –
Or maybe even longer.
The Written Addiction 