Missing

Some years it hurts worse than others. This year is one of those years. I thought it would get easier as time went on but that isn't always the case. A neighborhood child went for a ride with his dad on the bike. The look of joy on the kid's face brought back some great memories for me. The first and last ride of the season belonged to me. No one else went on the bike with Dad until I did. Of course it didn't hurt that I still lived at home for most of those years.

It was like Christmas all over again. I'd be up at the crack of dawn and perfectly willing to skip breakfast so we could hit the road immediately but "breakfast is the most important meal of the day" and Dad had to eat. He could have dragged it out to torture me but he'd be torturing himself in the process. After a long winter it was too much even for him. The open road called and he was a big Bob Seger fan. "I could go east. I could go west. It was all up to me to decide."  And so would start the riding season. You name a back road in the middle of nowhere NH and I've traveled it. We didn't cover as much in VT but we got close.

Nothing beats the feeling of being on a mountain road on a motorcycle. Even though NH doesn't have a helmet law, I never felt the desire to have the wind through my hair to quite that extent. Besides, the helmet was the only thing keeping my hair from whipping my face bloody.

I remember one ride - the last ride of the season. We really pushed it on the season that year and by the time we stopped for lunch I was so cold, I almost couldn't get off the bike. We walked into a small restaurant attached to a gas station. My hands were so frozen I couldn't get my helmet off never mind unzip my jacket. Dad had to do it for me. I went straight to the coffee urn and wrapped my hands around it trying to get some feeling back in them.

When I finally detached my hands from the urn I noticed the dirty looks my Dad was getting from the few people in the restaurant. Talk about shooting daggers out of one's eyes. It was bad. Then they would turn to me with such a look of pity. It took me a second to realize they had jumped to the wrong conclusion.

Normally I would let something like that go but this was my father. How the hell could they think such a thing of him? Yeah, I know. He was a stranger to him but how dare they? I was PISSED. So I purposely waited until he was half way to a table across the room before I yelled out "Hey DAD, do you want some coffee?"

Yeah you judgemental little twerps - he's my FATHER.

I think if I hadn't done that, we wouldn't have gotten served.

I can look back now and laugh. Dad did. He never let anything like that bother him. He didn't know these people. He'd probably never see them again in his life so why waste a minute of his time worrying about what they thought. It had no effect on his life unless he allowed it so he chose not to allow it.

I've tried to drill that philosophy into my head. I'm not always successful but I try. It's the only thing I know to do at this point. I miss him like crazy. I can't bring him back (believe me - I've literally dreamed that dream) but I can try to live my life like he did.

I think about him more and more these days it seems. I'm back to wishing I could pick up the phone when Little Man does something that is my Dad all over again. He can't stand to have his hands dirty. Something that is 100%  his grandfather. Something I never understood since he was an elevator mechanic. I used to ask him why he didn't just buy some surgical gloves and wear them when he worked. He never really answered me leading me to wonder, if I ever actually looked in any of the rooms on one of his jobs, how many boxes I would find.

It hurts that he isn't here to show Little Man the hippo in the stream or introduce him to the first ride of the season (I've already instilled in him a love of Harleys). I'm left with memories only but at least I have those. Little Man never even had the chance to meet him. He's not yet connected the dots. He knows the man in the pictures is my father and his grandfather but he hasn't yet asked me where he is and why he hasn't met him. I'm dreading that day.

I idolized the man. He was perfect in my eyes. Still is. To this day I struggle because he's not at the other end of the phone to help me solve a problem, walk me through the steps of replacing the garbage disposal so the food doesn't shoot out of it when it turns on, teach me the proper way to tile a bathroom, install a ceiling fan (of course it took him ages to do most of these and he suffered the sarcasm and jokes from his darling children but that's what children are for yes?). Yet again he wasn't there for me to call when another Boston team finally took the championship.

I think of these things sometimes and I mourn. Times like this I want to crawl up in a ball and just stop for a day or two. But I won't. I'll get over it. I'll start remembering all the good times, all the laughs we had over the years and I realize I'm lucky. I had him for 30 years. Its better than never at all. I'll take the memories. I'll cherish. I'll cry like a baby occasionally but it's OK. And one day, I'll share all these memories with Little Man. It's the best I can do.