Wednesday, October 13, 2010

I saw him.

Today I went to lunch with a friend.  (Maybe I will blog about that too...but later.)  As she drove me back to my work, I saw my dad standing on the corner.

Wait, my dad is in a rest home more than 50 miles from the spot where I saw him.

But it was him.  Had I not been in a moving car, I would have ran up to him.  He was standing in front of a church on a corner across the street from a 7-11 (the very Sev I bought my first ever legal pack of cigarettes on the day I turned 19. But again, that's another story.)  He was facing the stairs of the church, which meant all I could see was his back.  He was wearing a dark green corduroy-ish shirt, tucked into jeans.  He walked toward the steps, favoring his back toward one side.  His slow, meandering was completely familiar.  I exclaimed "That is my dad!"  I believed it.

It was like time slowed down.  I rubber necked it, waiting to see that the face below the close cropped salt-and-pepper-but-mostly-pepper hair.  But the face I saw was my dad's. He had a mustache.  The expression and body language were my dad.  I would swear on my life that he was standing there, on that on that busy urban church corner.

Was he really there?  Had I been in control of the car and had stopped and ran up to him yelling "dad! Dad!" would the man have been flesh and blood?  Did he really exist there?  I don't know how my dad could have an identical twin out there. But as I don't often have visions of people I love in real life, I guess he does.

But I so, so, so wish it had been him.  I wished I could have run up to him and put my arms around him and heard him calling me Beck and being himself again.  I'm almost glad I wasn't driving because I don't think I would have been able to stop myself from accosting this man who was 99% my father.  But the one who talked and walked and stood on street corners killing time while waiting for his ladies.  Like his twin was doing today.

Damn it, I miss him.  And even though I can visit my dad and touch him and see his face and his tightly clenched hands, it is a true statement that the stranger on the corner was somehow more real than the man in the rest home.

6 comments:

Amy Sorensen said...

oh.

I've done this before, too. And there is nothing else to say except you're right: I miss him, too.

Melanie said...

I'm tearing up and wishing for you that you could have your dad back. I'm sorry, Beck.

heidikins said...

Oh my goodness, this is just...wow. I'm sorry.

xox

Ginger said...

oh man, I'm sorry. My grandma once woke up and saw my mom in the room yet my mom was really sleeping at home...

Lucy said...

I can't even imagine. During most of the post, I was sitting here wondering if you actually were seeing him and he was lost or something. How horrible on both accounts. Hugs to you....

Isabel said...

The posts you and Amy do about your dad are always so beautiful.

I sometimes think I've seen my dad too. I wonder what that means. Does it mean I have regret? I hope not.