... this cannot be wordless. Today it is ten years since my father died. [ Long pause here for long tears. ] What is the word for the moment when everything changes? My father was significantly younger than my mother, and my mother was sickly most of her adult life. No one expected my mother to outlive my father. When he was suddenly gone, I felt the weight of the world lodge solidly on my shoulders. My mother. Several 'spinster' aunts. No buffer between me and total responsibility for the care of half a dozen elderly people. And my father was gone. Yes, that would be the moment when everything changes. AND my father was gone.
I drive the roads my father drove every day. I like that about my driving. I listen to the radio station he would tune in to for traffic reports. I think of him and of being in the back seat when I round particular corners more than others. I don't know where life will take me, and truth be told I am rather surprised by where it has taken me so far... but if I never get far from here, it will be because I couldn't bear to leave the roads my father drove and the comfort that that offers. And truth be told, I would give anything to be in the back seat again and hear him ask "You warm enough back there?" And truth be told, the answer will always be no --- because there is no warm enough when your father's been gone ten years.
~
My father drove a white Volvo most of my young years, but the following Marc Cohn songs are linked here because I think he captures something about parent-child relationships perfectly in them....
Watched it coming up Winslow
Down South Park Boulevard
Yeah it was looking good from tail to hood
Great big fins and painted steel
Man it looked just like the bat mobile
With my old man behind the wheel
Well you could hardly even see him in all of that chrome
The man with the plan and the pocket comb
But every night it carried him home
And I could hear him saying
Don't you give me no Buick
Son, you must take my word
If there's a God in heaven
He's got a Silver Thunderbird
He's got a Silver Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorados
And the foreign car's absurd
Me, I wanna go down
In a Silver Thunderbird
He got up every morning
While I was still asleep
And I remember the sound of him shuffling around
Right before the crack of dawn
Is when I heard him turn the motor on
But when I got up they were gone
Down the road in the rain and snow
The man and his machine would go
Oh, the secrets that old car would know
Sometimes I hear him sayin'
Don't you give me no Buick
Son, you must take my word
If there's a God in heaven
He's got a Silver Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorados
And the foreign car's absurd
Me, I wanna go down
In a Silver Thunderbird
Down the road in the rain and snow
The man and his machine would go
Oh, the secrets that old car would know
I still hear him sayin'
Don't you give me no Buick
Son, you must take my word
If there's a God up in heaven
He's got a Silver Thunderbird
You can keep your Eldorados
And the foreign car's absurd
Me, I wanna go down
In a Silver Thunderbird....
I don't know much about you
I don't know who you are
We been doin' fine without you
But we could only go so far
Don't know why you chose us
Were you watching from above
Is there someone there that knows us
Said we'd give you all our love
Do you laugh just like your mother
Will you sigh like your old man
Did something skip a generation like
I've heard they often can
Are you a poet or a dancer
A devil or clown
Or a strange new combination
Of the things we've handed down
Wonder who you look like
Will your hair fall down in curls
Will you be mama's boy
Or daddy's little girl
Will you be a sad reminder
Of what's been lost along the way
Maybe you can help me find her
In the things you do and say
And these things you have been given
They are not so easliy found
But you can thank us later for
The things we've handed down
You may not always be so grateful
For the way that you were made
Maybe some features of your father's
That you'd gladly sell or trade
And one day you may look at us
And say that you have were cursed
But over time that line has been
Extremely well rehearsed
By our father's and their fathers
In some old and distant town
The places no one here remembers
Called the things we've handed down...
