Hey, Dad…
James Clayton Myers 1935-1992
Just thought I’d let you know how things are going. When you left us, I was a weird nerd doing incomprehensible things with insects for a living, with three little bitty kids. Well, I’m still a weird nerd — some things never change — and now I’m doing incomprehensible things with spiders, after doing incomprehensible things with fish for a long time. The kids are grown-up adults now, and have moved out. The oldest works in a law office, the middle boy is a captain in the army, and the youngest is a grad student doing incomprehensible things with computers. You’d be proud of them. We are.
They’ve provided you with two more great-grandchildren. I wish you could meet them, and even more, I wish they could meet you. They’d like you, but then, all kids liked you. All I can do is tell them about you when they’re a little older. Maybe I can take them fishing. Read some comic books. Make some pancakes. Do some tiny fraction of the things you did with me.
Oh yeah, I’m as old as you were now. That feels weird. I’m supposed to be littler and younger than you.
Mom’s still doing fine.
Miss you. Wish you were here.
Got my sympathy. I’m 5 years older than my father was when he died. He died in 1975.
I still miss my best friend too.
My dad died in 2007, at age 86. I really miss him on Father’s Day. My favorite memory is when I was in the hospital for four months, when I was two. He and mom came to visit every evening when Dad got home from work. Dad would rush into the ward, scoop me up with my cast (which weighed more than I did), bury his face in my hair and gently murmur loving things to me, in French. I was my dad’s first daughter, so he gave me a French name. He did the same when my brother (his first son) was born. He had lived in LA with his grandmother, so his mom and aunt and the rest of the family spoke a 19th century version of French. He was teased in the Navy for sounding like one of the other guy’s grandmother, rather than the up-to-date French his immigrant friend spoke.
You’ll pardon me, but at 71, my evil, racist, sexist, homophobic, Catholic, Republican, Trump-worshipping father is still alive. Even though I’m stuck living under his roof, I want that fascist piece of shit dead.
I’m glad you got a dad you could admire and relate to, PZ, and I’m sorry he’s not here for you to talk to or share your joys and hardships with.
OK
so grandad was a bit … strange
My dad died in 2011 and there’s still not a day that goes by where I don’t think about him or miss him. Father’s Day is especially hard, and while I wish your dad could still be around for you, I thank you for giving me a place where I could say that.
@4 Be careful Akira. You’ll miss him when he’s gone. Treasure and make the memories while you can. Death is too final.
jack16
jack16, that’s a wild assumption. My Pa has been dead for 22 years now and I never once missed him. I barely managed to shed a tear when we buried his carcass.
To lose a lifelong mentor and close friend is a tragedy, to lose a manipulating tyrant is an eternal relief.
I am in my 50s and just approaching the age my father was when he died. My kids, 13 and 15, are bracketing my age of 14 at the time of his death. It is very strange. Barring unexpected events, I will live to be older than my father, but I don’t think I will ever feel like an adult, more like an old graying college student with kids, a good job, and a house. Which suits me just fine. I just hope to be fortunate enough to stick around a lot longer.
My father’s generation seemed to still have the knack for being adults, which I think later generations have lost. Anyway, speaking only for myself, I sure don’t have it.
Cancer took my Dad. Being middle aged now, there’s a lot I’d have liked to talk to him about. We never got to know each other. But oh well, that’s just life. It sucks and then you die, just gotta enjoy the moments you get. :)
My mom did a jig on her dad’s grave, and most of my immediate family would do the same for my dad.