The Ol’ Man’s Clothes
Snow and Saturday morning. A perfect combination for coffee, homemade biscuits, and the ultimate comfort clothes. Sweatpants. Slippers. Ponytail. And Dad’s old flannel shirt. Actually it’s a Dad Shirt Two-Fer today – I’ve got one of his old plain white t-shirts on underneath the flannel. Must be missing him today. I do, sometimes.
Of course, there are some parts I don’t miss. (Sorry, Ol’ Man, but you know it’s true!) I don’t miss the blistering sarcasm, the lightning-flash anger, or the full-nuclear-blast rages that were as terrifying as they were, thankfully, rare. In this world he was a rather temperamental star. But, as with stars, his destructive energy also gave life. About 87 percent of the time, Dad radiated warm, positive energy, a deep true comPassion wrapped around incandescent intellect and shot through with a measure of funloving silliness. People liked to be around him and tried hard to stay on his good side. “I loved your Dad, but you know, I used to be a little afraid of him!” More than one person said that to me at the funeral.
They also noted how much he mellowed in his later years. And he did: like a young star settling into middle and finally older age, Dad’s energy became less rageful and more compassionate as he went forward through time; until, by the time the cancer got him, he laid down his body with only a little bit of rage and dissipated like stardust into the Otherworld, where he lives today, a clear Presence who comes and goes with whatever seasons may exist there.
So it’s a snowy Saturday and I’m wearing the Ol’ Man’s clothes; they seem to call him closer to me and what’s more, they’re comfortable. I’m very much like him, good and bad alike. I walk proudly with the good. I work on the bad. That’s how it goes, generation to generation. And after I lay down his clothes and join him in the otherworld? -he’ll still be here.
Son has his eyes.
Daughter has his incandescence.
Both have his intelligence.
We go on.
Mad God Woman
