Dear Dad,
It's late. I'm tired. I am icing my knees. An increase in mileage on my "brain-clearing runs" means that now, at 3:29 a.m., I am also hungry. None of this upsets me. These tangible, corporeal sensations in my body, even the potentially unpleasant ones, serve to remind me that I am alive (God, what a cliché, begging for cinematic musical score. Ugh). I equate these feelings with the gratitude I feel when my muscles are sore from the uses of stretch, pull, contraction of a good run. As each year passes, some extend the meniscus of "then" to "now" to "later" into an impossible distance, and some contract those moments down into the imperceptible gap between squint, wish, and candle-breath. Explain THAT one, physics! Regardless of the "length" of each year, I emerge on the other side of it with new aches, less stamina, and greater recovery time.
Of course, these things all make me think of you. Another year without you, and the pain of losing you has shifted yet again. It never goes away, of course. It simply changes its shape. I wonder what it would have been like if I had rediscovered running earlier, with enough time for us to venture out together. Would my teeny steps, accompanied by the light piano-tickle-sound-effects of a Fred Flintstone cartoon, be enough to keep up with you, or would your strides eclipse my own mini-stomp-stomp-stomps? I know that you would, of course, not leave me behind, and I know that the love I have developed for running would become yet another thing that we could share, once you became a real person instead of the mental caricature most kids have of their parents. Would we listen to music or try to talk while running? I'm sure it would be some of both. I can imagine visible puffs of breath in November as we chugged through the Metroparks, you asking me about my students, and me asking you about growing up in Cleveland (what stories would you choose to tell each time, and how would you decide?) I can also imagine headphones vibrating against ears and jawbones, mosquito snippets of music escaping out with tinny reverberations. When I think about those moments, I know that both of us would be straining nonchalantly to make out the songs. I feel cheated that we never got to share this synesthesia, this sensory symphony of sight, sound, and tactile joy. I would like to think that our tastes would still be somewhat concurrent, and I am carbonated by the mental image of sitting on the floor with you, running shoes eagerly waiting nearby, as we traded recommendations and playlists, looking for the perfect tone and pitch and cadence to catapult us along the running path, our feet not even touching the ground. I know exactly the first songs I would give you, and, even better, I feel certain that I know the ones you would give me.
(Side note: I wonder if, while you were alive, you noticed how music can be the vessel allowing us to bi-locate not only in place, but in time as well? Or if you felt the grief of an unpleasant circumstance absolutely defiling the memory of a song you once loved? More on that next time...)
Today, you have been gone for 31 years. It is now 4:23, my ice pack has thawed, my belly is full of water, and I am done stretching my legs. I need to get to bed before the mourning doves who have set up house in the tree outside my bedroom window decide to "greet the new day". Playing in my head is the first track on the wistfully imaginary playlist I have for you ("I Believe" by R.E.M.), and I feel...cheated. miss you.
Goodnight, Dad.
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