“There’s something like a line of gold thread running through a man’s words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets to be long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself”. ~John Gregory Brown
And then he is gone, but you remain with that cloth wrapped around you as if your life depended on it. And, in a way, it does.
That cloth has been woven with words, and examples and smells and lessons and rides in the car and gas tanks filled on a Saturday morning and wintergreen lifesavers and bikes saved from the junk heap and badminton games in the street and toasts and peaches in frosted flakes and cartoons and the Mets.
Add to that, the knowledge of screws vs. nails, how to read a dip stick, when to change the furnace filter, how to add quickly in your head, integrity as your first line of defense and a work ethic that really is beyond reproach and you’ve got texture in your cloth.
Father’s daughters will forever be in debt for that love, the lessons, and the information that can only be gleaned from a generous man who understood that to make your way in the world you would need more than pink.
When that father is gone, rituals will take his place. Mine is to have a four hour conversation with him as I make my way to the Cape. We’ll catch up on the latest, the greatest, the worst, the tears, the memories, the screw ups, and the triumphs. Just before the smell in the air turns to salt and cedar you can almost believe that it smells just like Old Spice.
I wish you a wonderful Father’s Day whether it’s in his arms or in his legacy.