Car Talk

It was last november, we were in the car, waiting at a red light. I was driving, I had just gotten my license and was trying to get used to the old clunky van I would be driving for the next year. We were coming home from a shopping trip, about to turn left onto the highway where the trip would blur to its close. Bruce springsteen was talking about his father. The live 1975-85 disc 3 was in the somehow still functional CD player, on The River, the first five minutes of which was him telling a story of growing up, his long hair, the Vietnam war, and his dad. Above all else though it was about the reafirmation of his father’s love in spite of disagreements, fights and resentments, something that as I listened I realized I had never needed. I had always known that my father loved me, known even when he was grumpy while doing the dishes, or pushing for conversation with a quiet teenager as if that would ever work. He had never thought that the army might fix me or teach me some respect, never hated my long hair, never even questioned it.

And as we sat in the old smell of that van, watching the red turn arrow in front of us and listening to those words, I knew that I should say something, something to affirm what a wonderful dad my father was, how he was better than Bruce Springsteen’s dad, and to just let him know that I knew and that I was grateful.

I didn’t say anything though. I am far quicker with a written word 11 months later than I am with a spoken one in a fleeting meaningful moment. Even now I don’t know what I would say, the exact words elude me, I worry where I should place the commas, still not understanding that human emotions aren’t captured in the perfection of words but their honesty. I wish I had said something in that moment, forced some words out my mouth, jarbled and meaningless, but filled with love and gratitude, or in any of the moments of the next four months before my dad was gone. Gone on a night when that same CD sat in the CD player, at the end of Jersey Girl, ready to loop around again to The River. I didn’t let it loop and haven’t dared listen to that story again.

So I’m sorry dad, sorry I forgot to tell you while I could. But now a few random strangers on the internet know that I loved you and am forever grateful for the 18 years I got of your parenting.

As if that helps.