About six months, fourteen hours ago everything changed.
Countless times I walked to my car, five/six o’clock, leaving work after too many hours that day. Normally I’d dial you up and we would talk while I drove home. About nothing, but it made my drive easier. Some days it was because I was killing it at work and wanted, with zero specifics, to share it. Other times it was because work was killing me, and without specifics I wanted to share it. That’s just who I’ve always been: short on words, big on thoughts.
It’s taken forever just to remember I can’t make that call anymore. One of the bad ones I was walking to my car, feet hurting, but man did I have a long ass, good day. I thought I’ll give you a call and chat. It took only a second to have that internal “Oh”
We would talk usually 25-30minutes, your normal long distance father-son conversation. How’s the weather. How’s work. What are you having for dinner. Have you seen your brother. How is Sam. How are the dogs. I can literally hear the conversation. You’d tell me about work. About Gmom. About Baxter. About your plans for the house. Something you had for dinner. Somewhere in that conversation you would tell me something that would make me worry, never intentionally, normally about your finances.
Not a day passes that I don’t recall something. Usually young things. Sad things. Happy things. A mixture.
I think a lot now, what I feel is pretty normal, about all the conversations that never happened. Maybe because I left home young. Maybe just because I didn’t reach that age where we have those conversations. Maybe because of how stubborn you were. But damn, there was a lot of talking and learning still to do. And that’s okay. We’ll still have those conversations, but now they’ll just sound a little different.
And don’t worry. It was cold and windy as hell today. I’ll probably have leftovers or something for dinner tonight. I made spaghetti and meatballs last night. Works good like normal. It’s been a bit since I saw Kevin, but I talked to him a couple days ago, all is good. Sam is doing good. She’s doing fine at work. Dogs are good. Kane is still crazy. No school for him lately, COVID and all. And no, I haven’t been snowboarding recently, hoping to go next week.
