As a child, my greatest fear was my dad dying. I had nightmares about it. My mom is immortal, so I didn’t have to worry about her, and besides, her voice is implanted in my head. Listen:
Why am I wearing this ugly shirt? And why am I not best friends with that person I don’t like? When is someone going to clean this up and stop living like a pig?
My mom in my head shakes her head in my head.
Back to my dad. While he isn’t the image of frailty and weakness, he embodied the Achilles’ heel of my childhood. If something had happened to my dad, everything in my life would change. He was the financial provider while my mom stayed home with us (thanks, Mom!), he took care of us when we were sick, and he represented security to me.
One day he had the audacity to mention his mortality. In the military, he had assisted doctors harvest organs from donors. He enthusiastically told us that when he died, he wanted to donate his own organs. Stretching out his hand, he mused about how fascinating it would be if someone else could have his hand.
So yes, the nightmares were his fault.
I didn’t want someone else to have his hand. First of all, they didn’t deserve it. Second, even before having read Frankenstein, that sounded freaky.
My dad averted my fears by not dying, and has continued the trend to not dying as a grandfather. Jenna has done most of the work in that effort, but I assisted as well, providing this specimen:
Before reproducing, I knew that children tend to look like their predecessors. It makes sense; genes and such. I hadn’t considered so much that children
are their predecessors. They are new life, but they are a continuation of old life, which is weirdly beautiful. “Living on” in someone or “surviving” someone isn’t just poetic, it is somewhat literal.
So now I’m left to wonder at this new life, with his new soul and personality, but with his daddy’s chin and huge eyes (and feet), his mommy’s ears, and everything else that came from grandpa. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
P.S. Dad, might I tempt you to postpone dying until great-grandfatherhood? Perhaps great-great?
