Without a Father Figure

Crash. Boom. Bang.

I walked softly downstairs to see where the noise came from. I saw my step-father passed out on the couch. It was 2:30 in the morning and he snored away on the couch. I looked him over for a couple of minutes and listened to his heavy rasps of air.

I went back upstairs, sat in front of the computer, and thought of the news I heard today. I knew it was coming. I just wasn't ready to hear it. I just didn't want to hear it.

I hope you can handle what I am about to say. I just need to get it out and rid my heart of the terrible weight that has burdened it for so long. Here you go, and may you enjoy.

I was one when my mother left my father. I don't recall the night it happened. I only vaguely remember waking up on Christmas morning and my brothers telling me of the bad happening the night before. I went downstairs with them and noticed that it was a different living room, a different Christmas tree, and a different house. Funny. My mom left my father on Christmas Eve, took her sons to her sister's house, and started a holiday tradition that lasted for many years. From that moment on, we went to my aunt's house every Christmas for dinner.

I never knew my father. Bill was not exactly the affectionate type. I don't remember hugs. No. None of that. I only remember one kiss from him. Unfortunately, I also remember the bitter sting of his palm one time. It happened when I was five years old. Mom ran out of time to find me a sitter and had to take me to a family wedding outside of St. John's. My parents had been divorced maybe a year or two at the most at the time.

I wore only shorts and a rugby t-shirt because of the summertime heat. We met up with Bill and he was not happy to see me tagging along. They argued in my uncle's kitchen while I sat in the living room. Then he called me in. I was terrified of this man. I knew who Bill was but I had no connection with him. I immediately latched onto my mom's pant leg. He reached over, pulled me off, called me a baby, and tossed me into the cupboards. I bounced back off it and careened straight into his open palm.

Bam. Right on the kisser. I can still feel the hard cold linoleum under my ass when my body hit the floor.

I don't remember much after that, except for the fact he bought me soda pop all night, and told me that he didn't mean to hit me. I sucked my liquid sugar through a straw and nodded at him in silence. Sure. Just please don't hit me again. I don't like it. But I dared not say that out loud.

I grew up in a house of boys without a male figure. My brothers tried to be a father to me, but our household was just too violent. Not a day went by without a fistfight. To this day, I am still in awe at my mother. How she put up with it all is beyond me. She only pulled us closer and refused to give up on any of us.

My mom met a man many years later when I was eleven years old. He became a male figure in my life but well; not a father figure. At that point, I had become so disassociated with what a father figure meant anyway. My mom was the law in our family. She was the solvent that melted away the sadness of not having a father. She was everything to me growing up.

I met a girl when I turned 21 and we ended up moving into her father's house. I became close with him. Jim was such an intelligent man with a caring and gentle soul. He opened not only his doors for me but openly embraced me into his family. We hung out in his room and watched old movies. I listened as he explained the history of etymology behind historical names. He had been a teacher once and he taught me during our conversations. How to love a child and the small little things that make a difference in a child's life. Kisses he said. Lots and lots of kisses. You can never give them enough kisses. Then he laughed at his simple words. And I laughed with him.

We even took a technology program together for a year. I sat in the same class with him and envied his ability to get better marks than me. Well son, he said, maybe you should actually study. Then he laughed at his simple words. And I laughed with him.

His daughter and I eventually separated but I continued to live with Jim even when she moved out. I loved her father. He was the father figure I never knew. He was always there for me. His door was always open. And, believe me, I took advantage of that open door policy many, many times. It was incredible to know that I was like a son to him.

Time went on and people move on as we are known to do. I moved out, left the province, and traveled across North America for five years. I spent each of those years in a different mountain every winter and snowboarded with abandon. I almost even died on a scary, dark night during those same years. I lost touch with all of Jim's lessons and forgot about everything my mom told me about drugs. I almost drowned under the dark heavy weight of misspent youth.

Yet, as those years passed, I still called him. We always knew how the other was and he always wanted to know if I was being safe. He was one of the few I called when I dropped back into town to visit mom. We always went out for lunch. He always paid. The last time I saw him was a couple of years ago.

I am back in town again. I emailed my old girlfriend to meet up, have some drinks, and meet her new fiancee. I have not seen or even talked to her in over eight years. I asked her how her father was and noticed an absence in her written reply.

Today, I called another old mutual friend of ours who I had also not talked to in over eight years. Have you talked to our friend, she asked? Yes, I said, and I left a phone message with her last night. Do you know what happened, she asked. Do you know that her father passed away from cancer last year? She mentioned that she had no idea how to get ahold of you. She told me how close you and her father were.

No, I said, no I didn't know that. I hung up the phone a couple moments later and put it all out of my mind. I spent the day shopping with my mom, saw my old friend, got a haircut, and dropped mom off at home later on in the night.

I drove to get some food and then it hit me. He's gone. He's really, really...gone. No chance to even say goodbye. Gone. The one and only father figure in my life...gone.

The keyboard blurs in my vision. I think of all the motivating reasons I have created over the years to make sense of my life. To push me forward with haste. To make sure that this life does not pass me by and leave me with regrets. For me primarily, for my mother, for my close friends, heck, even for the random strangers I will hopefully inspire to live a life more than ordinary.

I think about my age and guage how much time I have left to make an impact in this world. People talk about age all the time. We are a culture so inudated and saturated with youth that we forget what comes with age. We turn a blind eye to the time needed to develop experience, to develop character; to develop a life. Oh getting old hey, some tell me. No, I say, actually I am just still a puppy. My age only represents the number of years I have been on this earth. I have many years still ahead of me and many journeys still to be walked.

But, for some reason, tonight, my life window grew a little shorter. A candle flame somewhere inside snuffed out, never to be lit again. He's gone. So, I will do my best to honour him with the time in this life that I have left. I will do my best to honour the only father I have ever known. I miss him. I will never have another father like him in my life ever again.

I think of Bill and of his last words to me over eight years ago. They were not of the kind, fatherly type. He suffered a major stroke a few months ago and does not even remember my name anymore. In his mind, I have never even existed. I could really care less. I don't know the man, never have, and really do not even care to know him. Sad.

My mom tells me she is so proud of the man I have become. I tell her that I have no idea what being a man really means. I never had a true example other than Jim. I have basically been building my image of a man the only way I know how: in my own image. Learning from my mistakes, avoiding those same mistakes in the future, and directing my life to a higher purpose.

I will continue to push on, Jim, and one day may we meet again to sit and talk. You may have used simple words to make your point, but you were never a simple man in my eyes. Thank you for all the times you pulled me aside and told me what it meant to have a son like me. Thanks for being the father I always wanted to have.

Until we meet again, my friends, until we meet again.

"Now how I can survive without my friend of mine? My view is not perfect...yet somehow perfect. What I am to do? I've lost that part of me...will I be alright? Yeah will I make it?"
- Daniel Greaves of The Watchmen

Juggling Act

I watch the pins cascade and tumble in the air. I deftly catch and switch each one from right to left, and keep my eye on the movement. Every once in a while, one drops mid-spin and lands softly upright on my head.

I ponder it and never stop juggling. Is it worth it? Will it sing? Does it have reason? Does it have zing? Will it last? Will it survive? When will it start? When will it thrive?

Out of my peripheral, I spy another pin about to tumble into the game. It seems brighter than the other pins. An aura surrounds it. Quick. Decision time. Quick, quick...hurry, hurry. It must be a smooth transition. It must be now. It has to be quick and easy.

But what stays? What has hope? What has matured? What retires young?

I grab the pin just as it joins the maddening rise and fall of the others. I grasp it in my palm for a split second. Flames lick up and scorch my mind. Uh oh. This one's on fire.

The ins and out of my life. Here you go, and may you enjoy.

Ideas are just that: ideas. But apply some critical analysis and an idea becomes a plan. Mix the plan with some thought and then the plan becomes a goal. But there is still a missing element. What will be the catalyst?

For that matter...what is a catalyst?

It is movement. It is decision. It is responsibility. It is action. It is result. It is measurement. It is success even if you fail.

Vision is key. It is important to look around your environment. Maybe even more important to take the time, be patient, and absorb. Then push, push...push. Quick, quick...quick. Hurry, hurry...hurry.

Then stop. Take a breath. Take another one. In deep and out deep. Think of what you want. Imagine the tangibles that make up the warmth and beauty of life. See it. Find it. Build it. Become it. Live it.

My manuscript is under review. I pitched it to a famous Maritime writer. He asked for some sample chapters. It shocked me at first to be honest. To be face-to-face with a stage in life and recognize it for what it is.

I sent him some chapters. He wrote back literally minutes after what it would have taken him to read the samples. He asked for the manuscript. Great voice he said. Strong stuff. I want to see if it sustains its punch and spirit. I like it he said.

The pins spin faster and faster. Each seems heavier and heavier. Each seems more real. Each is an idea that grows in merit. Each is an idea that burns with potential.

The ideas flash through my mind as I grasp each pin in between the stall from hand to hand. Business plan for the urban music artist. Promotion for the book. Brand designs for clothing and shoes. Standing in front of a growing audience and mentally preparing a speech.

Still they come.

The pin slips from my head and joins the madness. It passes through the rotation and I feel its heat. It sears my soul and then I feel the branded mark it left behind as it passes from hand to the next.

Then I realize. It is the one that has been burning all along. It is the one that is now breathing in the opportunity to become more than an idea. It burns for the chance to become real. It burns to move from dream to waking life. Soon. Oh so very soon. Just be patient. Soon my story will be laid out for the world to read. Some might judge. Some might critique. Let them. At least they will have to read it to do so. I only hope that it falls into the hands of the hopeful. The dreamer. The romantic. I only hope you will all relate to a life lived above ground with dreams of living in the clouds.

Until we meet again, my friends. Until we meet again.

"It's bitter baby and its very sweet. I'm on a roller-coaster but I'm on my feet. Take me to your river let me on your shore. I'll be coming back baby...I'll be coming back for more." - Anthony Keidis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers

A Breath in Transition

I took a break from work today and walked down to the harbourfront. I sat on some wooden stairs, stared out at the Atlantic Ocean, and thought about my life. I thought back to the days when part of my work involved cleaning up a beach. I sat on a driftwood log back then and contemplated my life while I looked out at the Pacific Ocean. Two different coasts. Two different occupations. Two different stages in life. Yet I still wonder about the same thing: where is my life headed?

Sometimes, we all need to put our life into perspective. I did today. I only know one thing for sure: I keep coming back to the same thing time and time again. Here you go and may you enjoy.

What does it mean to live? It was not that many years ago that I thought it meant drugs and booze and partying. Back then I wanted to do nothing more than obliterate the night and sleep in until way past morning. Then one morning after a crazy night of excessive drugs and booze and partying, I woke up in a hospital bed. Things changed. I scrapped everything and started over in another country. Travel was the goal. I headed off to my next stage in life.

Some years after that stage, I thought living involved travel, challenges, excitement, daring acts of rebellion, and more drugs and booze and parties. I spent my days on a chairlift with a snowboard strapped to my feet for almost half a decade. I dropped perfectly good cliffs for fun. Life was full of debauchery and hazy memories. I lost a friend. Things changed again. I decided an education was necessary in order to progress. I scrapped everything and started over on the opposite side of the country. University was the goal. I headed off to my next stage in life.

I traveled across the country and settled down on the Canadian east coast. Books, papers, team meetings, and exams were my existence. I traveled some more. I still partied some more. There were still hazy nights and foggy memories. I lost a friend again. I traveled some more again. I saw New York, Newfoundland, Vancouver, all of the Maritimes, and stood in front of the Canadian Rockies again. I even floated in the warm waters of the Caribbean while holding a beer in my hand.

Now, I am only a mere nine courses away from the completion of my degree. I was recruited for a great job while still in school. I have an amazing and most incredible woman in my life. I am blessed with the most astounding people that I proudly call my friends. Yet…am I living?

I get up in the wee hours of morning. I shower, shave, eat and run for the bus. I work, head to the gym, eat and sleep. Get up, rinse and repeat. My life is not boring. Only boring people get bored. But it is missing that zing…that jazz. The only thing that ignites my passion is this. Writing. So, I ask my self, “Self? Why are you not working harder on publishing your book? Why would you work so hard to write it and then let it gather dust?”

I do not have that answer. It is not that I am afraid of rejection or criticism. Bah, I say to that, bah. Still my book gathers dust.

So, once again, what does it mean to live? I always ask this question when I am in transition between this life stage and the upcoming life stage. I yearn to break out of my environment and at the same time I know that it is not possible. I must wait. I must be patient. Yet I must still continue to grow. I must still continue to develop. I must still continue to live.

So now I must wait patiently for my next stage in life. Soon I will have a degree in hand and that degree will offer so many possibilities and opportunities. The options are endless: teach in Japan, work on a cruise ship, stay in Nova Scotia, head back to the west coast; the list could go on. But, yet, wait; hold on just one cotton-picking minute, just whoa daddie whoa. Stop.

Living to me is writing. Writing is my life. Yet there was no mention of being a writer in that endless list of opportunities. Have I forgotten that along my quest? Have I forgotten that my pen and thoughts have brought me to this stage in life? That indeed, my writing has brought me through all stages in life – have I forgotten that? Maybe it is because I have not placed pen to paper or fingers to keyboard in quite some time. Maybe. Maybe it is time to do so again. Maybe it is time to not only chase down that dream but also to wrangle it to the ground, truss it up and show it that I mean business. Maybe.

So, I sat on the stairs, took in the sun and all its glory, and thought about all of this. I know that time waits for no man…but would it wait for me to go after my true and only dream? Just until I graduate. Just until then. Then the world is mine to do whatever I feel to do. But I still need to live and breathe in this transition stage.

Until we meet again my friends. Until we meet again.

“If I lay here…if I just lay here. Would you lie with me and just forget the world? Forget what we’re told…before we get too old.” – Snow Patrol

Old City Memories

I was raised in a ghetto in the oldest city of North America.

I grew up in a small complex of Lego-constructed homes connected together in myriad groups and units of three-sometimes-four-or-five rows. It was a small and private community kept under watchful eye by its residents. We knew our own kind. It was not a place to be at any time of the day, evening or night, unless you were with someone who lived there. Unannounced strangers quickly regretted entering our comfort space.

Up the hill from that ghetto was an orphanage. I say was because it is now torn down and only an empty field remains where it once stood. This orphanage was infamous in the memory of my homeland. Evil once dwelled within its walls and preyed upon the young and innocent under the deceitful veil of the name of the Lord. This notorious orphanage even had a movie produced about it called The Boys of St. Vincent. I ran away from home one rainy night when I was eight years old and made it as far as that building: it loomed in the chill misty night air and served a haunting vision to me. The thought of living there scared me straight. Unfortunately, many decades ago, before I was even born, that dreadful abomination was reality for my uncles. They lost childhood in darkened corners and unspeakable nightmares that remain silent to this day.

Down the hill from the ghetto and the empty field is a pond that annually hosts North America's oldest sporting event. I almost drowned in that pond during that same tender age of eight years old. I can still feel the icy grasp of water dragging me out to darker depths of inevitable death. I fought against the current that day and won…unlike a childhood friend who fell in that same pond only years before I had. He had been in a wheelchair. He never had a chance to fight the current. I think what saddens me more than both these memories is the fact that my best friend actually did die on the small narrow road that borders Quidi Vidi pond. She was sitting in the backseat of a vehicle that lost control and collided with an unmoving telephone pole. That is all I will say about her for now. It would be impossible to capture her spirit in a random collection of sentences. You will know who she is when my book is published.

Behind this pond sits an age-old fishing village affectionately called the Gut by locals. It houses the oldest cottage in North America called the Mallard Cottage. This area is full of history and the smell of fish which I was never really fond of. As children we walked along the shores of Quidi Vidi and fed mallard ducks pieces of stale bread. It was a very surreal experience growing up in that element of history.

If you followed the bay surrounding the gut up, down, and around the corner, you would find the historical monument Cabot Tower situated on the historical Signal Hill. You may recall an earlier attention to the history of this area from Salt of the Earth. At the base of Signal Hill is a small pond that city resident’s refer to as Dead Man’s Pond. Rumour has it that during the days of war, dead soldiers were stuffed in barrels and thrown off the side of Signal Hill. The barrels and the bodies inside bounced and careened down the hill and landed with a splash into the pond. Apparently, the pond is bottomless, and so the barrels eventually found a way out to the harbour surrounding St. John’s. Scary to think of all the souls locked in barrels. Makes you wonder what would have happened if a soldier was only wounded and unconscious instead of actually dead. I shudder to think. Cabot Tower and Signal Hill are iconic in St. John’s because both are lit up at night and can be seen from so many directions. It is such a beautiful sight but then again, I may be a tad bit biased.

Follow the waterfront down from Signal Hill until you go far, up, and beyond a long winding hill that swoops past a small anachronous town known as Shea Heights. Shea Heights is a smattering of small houses with junked cars and old kitchen sinks littering the front yard. But, whatever you do, just don’t stop to take pictures. As tough as my ghetto was, anyone from Shea Heights was always tougher. They don’t make people of that mentality anymore. Tough, rugged, ocean people. My kind of people.

Up the road from Shea Heights is the area known as Cape Spear and the most North Easterly point in North America. It is the spot where this continent first sees the sunset rise over the Atlantic Ocean and such a beautiful scene it is. It is littered with old army bunkers and remnants from the war years gone past.

I returned home to St. John’s two summers ago for the first time in over 12 years. I stood on a cliff bluff in Cape Spear as the rain pounded down all around me. It was surreal. The day was chill and foggy as most days can be in Newfoundland. But I didn’t care. I was home again. I could breathe the fresh air with certainty that it flew on the wings of the salt of the earth. But I also knew something else with certainty: I had outgrown my homeland. I was a stranger in the town I was born and raised. I may never be able to live there again…and that saddens me more than anything else in this world. To be from a place that is so welcoming but yet I don’t feel welcomed. I sit back and think about it now, and I wonder if St. John’s had outgrown me; or if I had outgrown St. John’s.

St. John’s is full of nooks and crannies and ghosts that walk the city streets. It is full of culture to tantalize the eye and a community of old generous souls. For those who are from Newfoundland, I say it will always be there waiting for your return. For those who have visited it will always be a drunken memory and an unforgettable hangover. For those who have never been…well, what the heck are you waiting for? Get out there m’ son and see the oldest rock in North America. Meet strangers that become best friends. Drink, eat, and be merry. Then drink again. Enjoy the fruit of my people as they enjoy your company. When you get there…tell them you were sent by one of their own.

Until we meet again, my friends, until we meet again.

“You’ll have to excuse me...I’m not at my best;
I’ve been gone for a month...I’ve been drunk since I left;
And these so-called vacations will soon be my death;
I’m so sick from the drink...I need home for a rest;
Take me home” – Spirit of the West