Editorial
Miss you dad.
The fragmented memories started their deluge as he clutched the small glass vial containing his father’s ashes; weird how he held his dad in the palm of his hand.
Father’s Day was coming up and he didn’t have the old man around to wish him the best . . . to say he loved him. Guilt pervaded his mind because those words were not often said between father and son; a regret that could never be rectified.
He saw himself as a boy again, lying in bed barely able to contain his excitement as the robins began their chorus at 4:30 a.m. Any second now his father would tap lightly on the door, which signalled it was time to get ready for their fishing trip up north.
Hours later they would be honking laughter as they shared the only food they had left — a soggy chocolate bar that was floating at the bottom of the canoe.
Another scattered memory, another fleeting image. This time they were in a rubber dinghy with the boy desperately covering a small hole with his thumb after a bass punctured the side with a spiny fin. Dad was rowing like mad as the boat deflated; they barely made it to shore.
The father molded his son after his own principles. He taught him to respect his elders and to fight back when challenged, recalling the time when his boy was surrounded by four schoolyard toughs and managed to fight his way out of the skirmish.
The boy hated his father sometimes for forcing him to eat mushy squash at the dinner table, and making him apologize in front of a neighbouring family for destroying a girl’s Barbie doll.
He hated him for all the backhands he received for being insolent, and when his sister was always given the benefit of the doubt during those squabbles.
But he loved him in so many other ways: taking him hunting every Saturday; buying him Cracker Jacks at the laundromat; giving him a new BB gun for his birthday; and teaching him how the world worked.
The father once told his son that it didn’t matter if he lived like a transient on the street, “as long as you’re a good one.”
Then one day the old man started getting sick; said it was prostate cancer, but he was too stubborn to go to the doctor. When he finally did, it was too late, the treatments didn’t work, and the disease whittled him away like a crumbling leaf in late autumn.
If your dad is still alive, hug him like there’s no tomorrow. If you haven’t spoken to him in years, make an excuse. If your father wasn’t much of a dad, make it a point to be a better one to your own children. You only have one crack at it.
Lyonel Doherty, editor
