Pop

My deceased father walks the halls of my mind from time to time. Not invasively.

He had said in our early teenage years, jarring my only sister as if intentionally, that if any of us three were to make it as artists it would be me. I thought I would be haunted, having mostly failed, but it is a presence most respectful. A translucent figure withholding judgement, hands clasped behind the back, waiting, remaining mute though watchful.

I drink black coffee with him once a day, because that, he said, was his lifeblood.

He only allowed himself one cup.

Two days before his death we had a long conversation. We always had deep talks, but this one had singular momentousness. We sat in army ration surplus wool blankets on the back porch watching the June sunset filtering through the tree line. He said he had understood that it had to be this way. Our time had to end.

Like an incomprehensible love affair.

He said he had to make way so that I could live out the rest of my life, come what may.

It was stabbing to us both--this Truth.

He had always held himself as independent. Never concerning himself with what others thought or the consequences of insisting on his own way.  The act of spoiling a trip or a gathering by refusing to attend, left him unfazed, while family near or far huffed and balked with indignation at the audacity and outrage. He would stick to his principles.

Yet he over the years he had wrapped himself, willfully and yet unwittingly, around my presence. We were tied in a knot.

He had tested my integrity, and something had to give. He would not tolerate any other person in my life. Except maybe a child, preferably bastarded.

I never wonder if he would be proud of me now. He would have scoffed at such a notion as cheap, infantile, and unintelligent. He would only want to know whether I kept my head above the pressures of social expectations and kept independence of thought?

In truth it isn't the dead that haunt me. It's the living who have isolated themselves. It is their absence that weighs over my consciousness. My father remains in my eyes an honorable man.