My Father’s Son

I wonder what my dad is doing this very instant.  Is he still curled sideways in bed, eyebrows knit together, one arm under his head, fighting the need to wake up?  I hope my Dennis Rodman of a brother has already boiled some water for his coffee.  Dad likes his coffee in the morning.

Dad has stories that are just begging to be told.  Stories that need to be liberated from my head and be seen by other people’s eyes. While I have been aching to write these stories, I am biding my time, waiting for these stories to take over and practically write themselves.

When I was just starting to fool around with a tennis racket and nobody wanted to play with me, dad would go home from work at midday and spend half of his lunch hour teaching me the basics.  We would don our sweaters (to keep ourselves from getting burned by the sun) and to the tennis court we would go. 

Mom would go on an apocalyptic fit and exclaim that we have gone beyond dark skinned, that we are now officially violets!  Dad in his sweaty glory would pretend to grab and hug her while I laugh my elementary school heart out.

I grew up wanting to be like him or at least become half the man he is.  I don’t know if I’m even close to achieving that.  All I know is that every morning when I look at the mirror, I see my dad’s face and that makes me strive all the more to do things the way he does things, calmly and deliberately.  I am after all, my father’s son.