To Daddy, with Love

I ran across this by contemporary American poet Franz Wright on Slate last night. It sums things up tersely and tidily:

I basked in you;
I loved you, helplessly, with a boundless tongue-tied love.
And death doesn't prevent me from loving you.
Besides,
in my opinion you aren't dead.
(I know dead people, and you are not dead.)

I can still hear his voice and speech patterns. The accent that is unique to northwest Tennessee. The way he often started a sentence with "Well. . ." where "well" is a two syllable word.

"Way-ull" is about how it came out.

And used with that pronunciation in that corner of the world, it indicates gravitas. A pause before and the bad news after.

I still end up crying about half the times I talk with my mother. She has the same accent, and her voice reminds me of him.

I didn't go home for too, too many years because Mama and me were at odds. It would have been a long trip that ended up with her not of approving of me and me resenting her. And then a long trip back home.

I couldn't do it. Whether or not a trip would have been a waste of money that ended in more bad feelings, I didn't go. I didn't have have money to waste, nor do I now.

When we sitting in the waiting room at the Methodist Hospital in Memphis, she turned to me and said that she realized some things just don't matter. It was her peace offering, and I took it.

What I think she meant was that she didn't care any more if I was gay or straight. I was her son, and that was the most important thing about me.

And she's right. I don't define myself as gay or straight or anything having to do with sexuality. I'm a human being first, and a pretty boring one at that. I don't have lifestyle, gay or straight, because I can't afford a lifestyle.

I have a life. Nothing more, nothing less.

Still, all those years of isolation trouble me. I wasn't there when I might have been able to help them, if only to provide a shoulder to lean on.

In retrospect, it seems like too much silliness. Much ado about nothing. Too much energy on both our parts that led to further isolation.

So I'm left with now and here.

Peace is hard to find some days. Sometimes, I think the best is living with a dull ache that doesn't send me into a debilitating depression. Others, I can defy depression and find a modicum of peace. Depends on the day.

But I know dead people, too. And Daddy isn't among them.