Sean Dietrich
There’s something about boys. When your old man dies young, it does something to your brain. It changes your perception of your mortality.
You don’t expect to live as long as he lived. It’s just something that happens to you. You can’t explain it. Too hard to articulate. He died young. Why not you?
So this is a big day. It’s the biggest birthday of your life. It is the occasion that officially makes you the same age as he was when it all ended. That fateful age. When he departed.
That number. That year. It really means something to you. You don’t know why. But it does.
ILLUSTRATION BY SEAN DIETRICH
You expected to have died in a car crash by now. Or a bad fall. Or a freak accident. Or you expected to go like your uncle Eustis, a house painter who died in a climbing accident, although it was likely the falling that killed him.
You can remember how very old your dad seemed to you when you were a boy, just before his end. In your childhood mind he was ancient.
He had a few traces of white in his red whiskers. His chest hair had patches of gray. He complained about his back a lot. He made noises when he bent over. Fishing was too much work.
You remember how he was your hero. How he could do anything. He knew everything. You remember how neighborhood dogs always followed him around. And how you wanted to be him. You wanted your shoulders to be as broad as his. And your jaw to be as square.
And as of today you’re his age. The same age he was when he passed. How is this possible?
You never thought this age would happen. Not to you. Because this is the age of dying. This is the age of expiration. This is the age when good men kick the oxygen habit. This is the age when fate finally catches up with you.
It’s weird. You don’t expect to be alive on this particular year. You don’t expect to wake up and have your wife cook you a breakfast of soy bacon and heart-smart eggs, and ask if you paid the health insurance.
But today is a first day of firsts. A day when you realize that you have been taking naps after lunch regularly. A day when you were flattered because the guy at Publix asked to see your ID when you bought beer. A day when you told your five-year-old niece that it’s perfectly normal to poop one’s pants, and now she won’t quit making fun of you.
A day when family members keep telling you how good you look, but they never told you this when you actually looked good.
All you can remember is your old man. The guy who never made it this far. The guy who painted your life with trouble when he pulled the trigger, although he didn’t mean to.
An age when you’ve finally started to understand why he did what he did, and you don’t blame him for it.
It wasn’t the best option, no. There were other, better options staring him in the face. Therapy. Meds. Life changes. Anything but what he did.
But you respect his decision. After all these years, you respect the way he wanted to leave this world. On his own terms. You don’t support the decision. You don’t agree with it. But you accept it. You know he didn’t mean it personally. That’s your take on things now. That’s your attitude.
Which is an attitude, I suppose, that only age can give you.