My Dad would have been 69 today. I would have made sure that the significance of the number was not lost on the celebrants, writing "69" as many times as I could on the wrapping of his present and alluding to the now-glorious significance of the six-plus-nine in the writing in the card. It may have irked some people and some people may not have even gotten the "joke" (read: Grandma), but I'd have made sure that I beat the dead horse of a joke until the stuffing were coming out of it. I mean, you're only sixty-nine once, right? It is a etheral number and so it needs to be celebrated.Anyway, it's a moot point. Kind of. But maybe not. Maybe, just maybe, Dad is up there in the heavens, kicking it with his mom and Rod and Dean, and they are all looking down on me--in my earthbound bag of bones and skin with its pains and conditions--and silently shaking their heads with bemused expressions on their mugs. "Adam will be Adam," Dean says to Rod, and Nana and my dad nod their gaseous heads in agreement.
Well, Dad, I miss you, man. Your loss (or my loss, whichever makes more sense) comes to me in waves. It comes at times when I least expect it. It's like, I see something or something happens and, though we were never particularly close (I love you, of course), it may cross my mind that I want to share it with you and then I think to myself, oh yeah.... Dot, dot, dot. Such is life.
Anyway, happy sixty-ninth, Dad! Have a heavenly birthday, mi pee-aye-pee-aye. Love.
9 comments:
i'm sure dad is looking down and smiling at the '69' joke. he's with me, too, all the time. and i, too, become overwhelmed with a memory just out of the blue. every day is his day for me...not just the day he was born. but it is a time we can remember his smiles, his whistling, his jokes, and his love for his family...which we can return 100 fold. thanks, adam, for your tender thoughts. and happy birthday bobby b.
Happy birthday, Daddy B.
I thought of him today as I bit into a Clementine orange to start a bit where I could peel it - Dad used to do that and it boggled my mind as a kid. So sour!
Lifting the orange to my mouth I was thinking of nothing other than wondering where the hell I had put the spoon, but as soon as the tart taste hit me, I remembered Dad starting our oranges the same way.
Happy birthday, Daddy B. You'll be with us for a long long time.
Im sure hes really proud of his son.
And I'm sure he finds the 69 jokes as hilarious as we do...
Peace and love bro,
M
BooBoo: Whoa...his whistling.... *That* brought a wave of memories. =o) I particularly loved his somewhat unconscious whistling that he always did...you know the kind: when he was preoccupied with something and he just sort of had a low tuneless whistle going on in the background? =o) And, of course, the way he whistled with the birds. Did he ever even know what he was saying to the birds? He could have been talking shit to them, for all he knew. ;-)
Missy: He'll be with us forever, won't he, Meliss? =o) And now I have an image of him paring the apples with his pocket knife...taking the skin off, one peel at a time till the apple is naked and white and delicious and ready to be quartered and quartered again. Oh shit...the memories are threatening to blast through the wall in my brain. I think I'd like them to come.
Maithri: What's up, bro? You won that "Pass it Forward" game, by the way. I need your snail mail address. =o) I wonder, though, if he *does* find the "69" jokes hilarious. Do you think that he's just staring down at me--maybe from the corner of the computer room (spooky)--wondering just what the hell he did to encourage his son's immaturity? :-P Naw...he's okay with it. Hell, a lot of my childish joking I got from him! It's an hono(u)r to carry on the legacy! =o)
I have to go get a tissue now. Happy Birthday to your Dad. I like to think my loved ones are up there looking down at me and giving me some strength.
I'm sure they are, Girl. =o)
Happy Birthday to the Adam-Daddy!
Smiles from heaven, love...
:)
He thanks ya, JenBun.
=o)
Wishing your Dad a heavenly one, too!
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