The Longest Day 6.0

 Going back and re-reading it's interesting the things that seemed constant in this day... the biting, early morning Cleveland cold, the sound of the highway, the light in my father's front room, the icy steps to his apartment... year after year it's the things that stuck in my head... re-reading them i thought what have i missed? what have i forgot or more maybe more correctly chose to forget? i believe it was the original post where i talked about sitting on a bench in the hallway, the early morning sun of a blue-skyed winter day blindingly gleaming off the pure white snow of the courtyard outside, sitting on that bench and eating pretzels and sipping water as i was still working to shake off the remnants of the illness that had laid me flat a couple of days before... sitting on that bench and watching the doctors and nurses and people walk by, for some it was just another Tuesday at work, for some it was an appointment or a follow up visit and i'm sure there were some people just like me, waiting and wondering and hoping that the person they love was going to be alright... looking back now i know that i'm not the only one who will associate that day with the Longest Day... there were others there, kindred spirits, all keeping our fingers crossed... for some in that place it was the last day... 

The arbitrary names and numbers that help us count and keep track of things, even of things such as memories, they remind us not to forget, as if there is some crime in forgetting... but there is no crime because we don't forget, we know and remember and even if those memories warp and fade into something different they are still there... there is a comfort to them, even the painful or sad ones, because in the end they are another piece, another chapter in the story and in order to be complete we need all the chapters... even the one that's the hardest to read... 

Six years later and i still go over that day in my head, did i miss something? is there something i forgot? thinking back and remember how i barely slept, how i woke up at 4:15 in the morning and didn't get back to my dad's apartment until almost 10pm... the moment, as my big sister and i walked out of recovery where i finally lost it, where the tears streamed down my face and i said "he's the best friend i've ever had...." Looking back i understand that the time my sister and father had a bit of strained relationship, mainly due to politics, my father detesting the Orange Shitgibbon and his grand old party while my big sis had become a card carrying member... i know it bothered my dad, he couldn't understand how someone as intelligent as my sister could support these people, someone with a son on the spectrum, how could she back a buffoon and a party who would relegate her child as a drag on "their" system, a party that would like nothing more than to strip him of his rights, benefits, opportunities you name it... they hadn't talked as much over the last couple of years due to it and when my father spoke to me about it i could tell it bothered him... even that night, as i drove my sister home in our father's car she began talking about it, sadly i realized the latent racism and white privilege my sister exhibited, i think somewhere in my father's mind he didn't understand how his two children could be so different... but then again he probably could, we were two different people who experienced vastly different things, particularly between the ages of 18-27... years my sister lived at home (she is six years older) and years i spent at college and then walking into the Wilderness... 

Five times this day has come and gone since that first one... each time i get up and look out the window at the sky... not once has it been as cold and sunny as on the Longest Day... driving through the city that morning i try to remember what my dad and i talked about, it was nothing important, no philosophical debates on the state of existence, we just talked, mainly to keep our minds off what lie ahead of us, each mile bringing us closer to the inevitable... not that we knew it at the time but we also both understood, the 100-1 longshot doesn't come in that often... and these odds were even longer... so we talked about the mundane, mainly because it brought about some normalcy in what was decidedly an abnormal day, in a few hours my father would have his whole torso cut open and two highly educated and skilled surgeons would see if they could play god... and as we know they couldn't... but they tried... and that's all one can ask for...  

The Longest Day, version 6.0... it wasn't 4am but it was early enough, somewhere slightly south of 6am the eyes popped open, Phat Paco walked up for some morning head butts before plopping himself down on my chest and purring away while i stared at the ceiling... it wasn't lost on me that i've been sleeping on this couch/futon for over six years now as well, before it was sweet Syd who hung out and now it's Phat Paco, happy to lay around and keep me company, i tried to go back to sleep but mainly i just lay there thinking, i'm not sure anyone else remembers this day, maybe my big sis, possibly my aunt, i'm sure my father's older brother would have but now he is gone as well.. and so i took a deep breath and got up, stretched a bit and quietly walked around a sleeping house, the only movement the cats who eagerly anticipate their morning treats, i walked up the steps to turn on the coffeemaker and i could hear the light tap of their paws as they followed me around with expectant looks... 

The morning would go decidedly pear-shaped from there... it was the rare day that the I-mac was ready for school on time and as we drove towards the high school he was talking about basketball, mainly the NBA and about guys scoring 70 points in a game and if i thought it was easier today than it used to be, my reply was no, it's hard to score that many no matter what level your at and in the NBA even more so, it's just a testament to how skilled these players are... since he had watched a Tik Tok claiming otherwise he disputed this fact to which i replied, i kinda know cuz i actually watched the guys in the 80s... the problem is if one dares disagree with the I-mac a meltdown ensues, it started because he said i was getting shitty about it and the truth is i was, mainly due to the fact that he started being a shithead and disputing everything i stated based on a fucking Tik Tok clip of some guy who wasn't even born in 1986 or whatever the fuck... it was ridiculous to the highest degree and only went downhill from there as he began screaming and yelling before elbowing me while i drove to school... Disaster in the backseat rolling his eyes because he's seen this show too many times to count... i drop the youngest boyo off but now the oldest boyo refuses to get out of the car because he's too worked up and is screaming about all sorts of things unrelated to the topic that kicked it all off... yeah, we got issues...

(the I-mac likes to play this game, you see last week his mother was the most horrible person on the planet and he wanted only to deal with me, this week the roles have reversed and it annoys him when both the BW and i call him out on his bullshit, as previously stated the boy is a walking excuse for all his fuck-ups and assholery while claiming none of it is his fault and blaming anyone and everyone... at times he'll even blame the cats... nuff said.) 

We drove back home, the whole time him ranting away and me tuning out, he ran in and found his mother and i got ready for work... sometimes being a gig economy serf comes in handy, with no set schedule i can leave whenever and though i didn't have a batch i said i did and left... sitting in my car alone i thought about my father... i never treated my dad like this, i had too much respect, i understood the sacrifices he made even at 17 and though i had a phase where i was a right shithead that phase was short lived... i knew what i had to do and knew how to play the game... Pops always liked that about his only son, from a young age i had street smarts... he dug how i operated and kept out of trouble even if keeping out of trouble was basically just not getting caught... (little did he know what sort of shenanigans his adult son would get up to and though i gave him a small glimpse of my former occupation during the Wilderness Years i never told him the scale of which it attained... to be fair, Pops was no fool and figured his boy might have been into some things and now and then would mention it... i'd always give him my shit eating grin and a little shrug and tell him he might be onto something... as he once said to me during those years, you never asked for a dime or needed a place to stay, i don't know how you did it, i don't want to know, but i respect it... )

And so the day progressed... just another day, i worked the gig for a few hours, it wasn't a particularly busy day so after a small batch i kicked off and headed to the pool... the heater has now been fixed which means the days of walking into an empty pool and choosing a lane are over... a few days before the water was up to 71 degrees, still chilly to most but to those who paddled through the water when it was barely touching 60 it actually felt warm... now it's back to normal which means i can jump right in... there are certain days i always try to swim.... Feb. 13th, Jan. 21st, May 16th... all dates related to my father... Jan. 21st, Pops' birthday, was my last cold swim before they shut the pool down for repairs, call it serendipity... the water was freezing and i was the only one in the pool and i cranked out 1400 yards, the cold made it feel like two workouts in one and as i dragged myself out of the water i gazed out the large windows surrounding the pool, it felt good... after 16 days off i had gotten back in and this swim would be my fourth swim back, getting older the conditioning goes quick but i decided to do a mile, breaking it up into sets with certain number of lengths, as a tribute to Pops, it was one of the best parts of the day... 

It's an interesting feeling thinking back on that day as each year it gets further away from the now, just an arbitrary point on an imaginary line and yet it is fixed in my mind, how vivid the memories are, how on that day i can look at the clock and know exactly what i was doing six years ago, when i was eating, when i was attempting to diffuse an argument between my aunt and uncle on one side and my sister on the other, the pager going off as i stared at my chicken soup and my heart sank, the discussion with the surgeon, the waiting in various halls and rooms... it was around the time i picked up the boyos, (yes the I-mac finally went to school, driven by his mother) and stated that today was the day of my father's surgery and it was around this very time my pager went off and i got the news... i calmly and casually explained that this day was probably more difficult to navigate than the day he passed as it was this day that verified what we all know but pretend not to acknowledge... we'll all die, now and then we get an idea of how long we'll have, sometimes old death just shows up, cancer can kiss my ass but if there is one thing it does do is it gives you some time, time to spend with the person you know you're going to lose and when that person means as much to you as my father did to me you take advantage of it... 

(As is his way, Disaster randomly walked by and gave me hug after we had gotten home from school, i knew why, it is a markedly different relationship than the one i have with his brother and while the I-mac and i have deteriorated at the moment what i said in the car had struck a chord, slightly i'd say, as one of the things i often tell him is that the world is not just him, that other people have feelings, emotions, views, and a lot of times you'll not know what's really going on... unless of course they say something...) 

The Longest Day was the start of a month and change of some of the most cherished times i had with my dad... i knew it then but i understand it more now... we spent a lot of time, we learned a lot of things, but mostly we both knew that we had a brilliant relationship... during the divorce my mother once accused my father of being my friend, you're damn right i'm his friend was his response, i was a grown man at this point for all intents and purpose, finishing college and wandering off into the wilderness... he was my best friend... many days i look up towards the sky, not with any religious connotation but understanding the universe is made of energy and energy cannot be destroyed, we just become something else, born of stardust we return to those elements that we're made of... i talk to him, ask for advice, have a laugh... the Longest Day had come again... and yes it was long, by evening as i made dinner and folded laundry, washed dishes and felt the pull of an aching back it struck me how this day was understandably different yet also similar to the original, when i finally sat down on my makeshift bed, exhausted, i turned on the telly and of course a basketball game was on, just like that night six years ago, i couldn't help but smile... then Phat Paco came purring my way with his big shining eyes and plopped down next to me... he loves his Paco and Dad time as i call it... i lay down and pulled up the blankets, turned off the light behind me, listened to the hum of my big cat in the fluorescent glow of the television... i looked towards the ceiling and whispered, "i love you dad", and drifted off to sleep...