February 24th, 2023

Six Years Gone

When I talk about my dad I often mention that I don’t take after him very much. When my mom walks into a room where people know me, or I walk into one where people know her, we can be identified on sight, we resemble each other so much, and it’s not just physical either, but my dad and I…less so. But today, six years after his death, here is a list of things we did/do have in common:

1. Jerry generally ordered the most interesting things on the menu, even if they were also things that could turn out to be bad. He quite often ended up mournfully picking at a weird stew but he also had some fantastic bouillabaisses over the years, and he never gave up believing in the special of the day. After years of sticking with my favourites, somewhere in my thirties I became more like that. I unusually want the most interesting thing I can order, and am often disappointed–and often not.
2. We are both green thumbs, mainly because he taught me to be. My dad taught me that the art of taking care of plants, as with taking care of anything, is labour and paying attention. I mean, and also weeding, which sucks.
3. We are both nosy about the lives of strangers, which is funny for a couple reasons. I am nosy about everybody, but my father was not overly curious about the lives of people in nearer proximity, like neighbours and colleagues, probably because they would have the ability to nose right back–my father was an incredibly private person (when someone comments that I wasn’t a very rebellious kid, I sometimes retort/want to retort that we are all rebelling against different things). But he did like to know about random people at the library or on the street. He once met a waitress at a Pizza Hut in Atlanta whom he talked about for years. My father liked people who were at a slight remove from him and knew it, and could joke about the distance. My favourite one of these was his “machine guy,” who would fix his two lawnmowers and rototiller (he had a vast property and garden) every spring and fall. They had a relationship spanning decades, although I have no idea about the guy’s name. The guy was a motorcycle enthusiast who did the Friday the 13th Port Dover Rally, if you are familiar. One year it took extra long to get the lawn mowers working in the spring and my father was anxious about the lawn getting “too long,” by his standards. He called the guy (repeatedly, I imagine) who said, “I know, I know–it’s taking too long. I go to my therapist, you’re all I talk about.”
4. We both want to pet all the cats, look at all the birds, feed all the horses–all the animals, all the time. My father’s original dream for me, when I was probably only about three or so, was that I would be an ornithologist, because I liked looking at a dead bird I found on the road (why was this happening? lost to time). My parents took me to the children’s museum to see more dead birds (again, why?) and many zoos and any farm where you could see a horse, which were conveniently plentiful in our neck of the woods. One dusk we sat in lawn chairs in the backyard and 1000 starlings flocked in our yard, I don’t know why. We always pointed out hawks to each other. Mark was very startled by the phrase “that’s a good-looking dog” when I first pointed one out on the sidewalk, but now he uses it too–it originated with my father.
5. This list could go on and on–I’m having a tough time, I don’t know why no one tells you about year six. But I’ll end it here. We both are happy for other people to have a good time. I’m not always as generous as I want to be–working on it–but I’m always glad to see if someone else can have some fun even if I can’t. I always wanted my roommates to go to parties even if I had to stay home and study, I would like to hear all about your glamourous vacation, I always hope Mark will get to go on good guys night and drink a million beers. My dad was the same way. The last gift he ever gave me was a last-minute plane ticket on boxing day–not cheap–to go and see my in-laws. I had been supposed to spend Christmas out there but because he was so sick I didn’t go, but he didn’t want me to miss the whole trip, so he and my mom got me the ticket to go later. He said over and over how happy it made him to image me having a good time. He died less than two months later.