How Proud Your Dad Would Be!

How Proud Your Dad Would Be!

I concealed it for a period of two years.

I studied alone while enrolled in an online master's program. My only real motivation for hiding my further education was to deflect teasing remarks from some members of my immediate family and to avoid answering inquiries about my studies.

I didn’t mind holding things in after living alone long enough. That method works better sometimes. to remain silent until you've crossed the finish line. Perhaps it's my attempt to steer the story, but the truth is that I really didn't want to make a big deal out of it. 

I requested that the school mail my mother the degree when the time came. One evening, she informed me over the phone that a gift had arrived. She should open it, I said. She may or may not have been surprised by the revelation, but she composed herself enough to say something I'd heard much too frequently after reading the information.

"Your father would be really happy."

Your dad would be overjoyed.

This is a line I've heard many times throughout the years. from relatives. from my mom. from people who understood him better than I did.

That statement has always confused me since his untimely death fifteen years ago.

Occasionally, the line agitates my stomach, causing my internal boiling pot to burst into rage. What would make my dad proud, and how would they know? Why force emotions upon someone who has long since passed away? I mean, why even mention him? Congratulations on your success. Allow me to bring up your father's passing. 

I'm never sure how I'll feel on the inside, probably because it's not something I anticipate hearing. However, my outward response rarely varies. I ignore it, swatting it aside like a bothersome insect.

I mean, there's not really much I can say in reply.

Nothing ends a discussion faster than discussing the deceased.

Maybe it's because I don't recall father ever telling me he was proud of me that it hurts me. Angry with me? Indeed. Feeling let down by me? Twice or thrice. 

but pleased with me? I can't recall. Either he never said it, or so many other people have invoked his pride in vain that it has supplanted any real recollection of him saying it.

Time may obliterate the truth forever.

My hair was still wet from perspiring during the chilly night when I entered via the front entrance. An equipment bag loaded with a football uniform smeared with grass and grime slung over my shoulder. I hadn't bothered to remove the girdle or pants' foam cushions.

My dad was inside, sitting on the floor in front of the sofa. He used to sit in front of the couch because, for some reason, he thought it provided a better view of the television. He whooped when he saw me and thudded a paperback on the ground.

"You're just in time!" he exclaimed, raising his voice above normal.

A local news anchor summarized high school games on television. It ended with my squad taking on a division foe. A few highlights, including me jumping in to save a misplaced ball. Once more, my dad whooped.

I wasn't really active. I wasn't particularly large, swift, or tall. You should have a sense of how frequently I saw the field from the fact that the person in front of me was an NFL player for over ten years. Nonetheless, the coach placed me on special teams since I like tackling and was sufficiently agile. 

My dad used to bring a book to sports. Not that he was reading to me. I wasn't required to. Ever since he played soccer in first grade, he had carried a book. He would, however, set down his book five or six times a night in order to observe and applaud.

And he gave a whoop at least once.

My dad said it was time for him to go to bed after the newscaster changed to a different game.

My father was a man of few words, even though he was a college professor by day and a pastor at night. 

He didn't say much to me at all. Not that we didn't get along or that he shied away from me. We didn't have long chats. He preferred to be silent in the car rather than to converse. He might not have known what to ask me. To be honest, I was at a loss for words when it came to him.

He used to answer the phone first when I moved away to college, knowing that I would only speak with him for a short while before my mother took over and continued the conversation. 

He came to see me when I was almost done with college. He had driven my newly fixed car the thousand miles from Michigan to Savannah, Georgia. When it came time to go, it wasn't ready because it had been damaged during my vacation. Throughout the week, we watched a few films. I took him to several of my favorite eateries. One of the producers of The Simpsons gave us a presentation.

None of the talks we had stick in my memory. I doubt that we discussed anything really important. After a week, I dropped him off at the airport after our neighbor shot a picture of us at his request. He remarked that was the most fun he'd had in a long time, according to my mother.

I believe my mother told me more about his pride than he did throughout the years. Not that I requested it, anyway. I didn't do actions because I believed they would bring him joy or pride while he was still living.

Now that he's gone, I definitely don't do anything that would have made him proud.

Even still, more half-strangers than he ever said have expressed to me how proud he would be of me. That may be the reason it annoys me. Since I wouldn't have heard it from him, I don't want to hear it from them. 

He wasn't like that.

He kept his pride from me. However, there were indicators.

Some I became aware of right away. Others developed gradually.

After my dad passed away, there was a general feeling of disbelief. In two weeks, I went from being healthy to being incinerated, and that disbelief seeped into my blood and lungs. I walked for days like I was always just waking up after an inadequate snooze. I'm groggy and attempting to make sense of my surroundings. 

The majority of the time was spent seated. After that, stand. After that, sit. repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly. sitting at my parents' residence. I stood up to say hello to strangers. I sat there feeling weak in my legs. I'm standing to take an embrace from relatives that I must have met when I was a baby. sitting and examining urns.

It was a nightmare for someone like me who goes insane the longer I go without doing anything. A dreadful dream inside a nightmare.

I could have determined whether or not life was genuine with one of those Inception spinners. 

Detecting my discomfort, my mother sent me to my father's workplace. to search for anything that could be useful for prospective appointments and services. Slightly of a walk from the house, I accepted with pleasure.

I hadn't been to his workplace in years. Tucked into a corner, the room was modest on the third floor, made more smaller by the hundreds and thousands of books. I used to wonder what he was doing as a kid when I would walk up into the office and down the street. To glance at the books, to smell Mr. Coffee, who never stops jogging. It was in that workplace that I tried Folgers for the first time, thick enough to chew. I recalled the golden sphinx statue and a few clocks at that era.

Over the years, little had changed in the office. Thousands of books had made it smaller, yet it was still little. The little smell of Folgers, which had been cold for half a pot, was still present. Files and a little leather book that opened to a page he would not turn the page were on the desk. I closed it and slid in a piece of paper to mark his spot.

The clocks and the gilded sphinx surrounding the desk. old pictures of his wife and the children, from when we were adorable and young. There was nothing in the materials that warranted a presentation for further services. 

.. However, I noticed a fourth-grade drawing I did of Goofy pressed against the wall right behind the desk. It was the winner of a small competition held at the post office. Though I assumed the postal office misplaced it, I had been wondering where it went. And a picture of the two of us standing outside my Savannah apartment together next to it. a photo we shot right before he left town during his week-long stay.

After taking down the two pictures, I sat for a bit, not quite ready to go back inside the house. I studied his face, his wide smile, his bearded face, and his arm around my shoulder as I looked over the photo, which showed him surrounded by books and awful coffee. 

Not every time did my father express his pride in me. However, there were indications