When I want to be reminded of my father, I have only to go
as far as the closest mirror. He died 14
years ago, so it’s been a long time since I’ve seen his lovely face. In the
meantime, I have my own face, which according to his elderly friends, is the
spitting image of his own.
We used to get comments all the time when I was little. They
would usually begin with ‘Oh my!’, ‘Or well well well, no question who YOUR
father is’. I would bream with pride at our sameness. My older sister, who
looked nothing like the rest of the family, was excluded from our universe. But
occasionally the grownups would take it down to a jolly whisper and say
something about the ‘postman’. I was always tempted to tell Sue that she was
adopted. But I took the highroad and told her that she was 'an accident’,
instead.
 |
| Me. (No, not really) |
By the time my dad was in his fifties, he had sparkly silver
hair and was just as handsome as ever. But there were a few signs of aging.
Most noticeably his right eyelid, which had started to sag. I was disbelieving
at first - because I thought he
would be permanently perfect. And I optimistically thought it might just be a
temporary glitch. But the sag just deepened, and when he was very sleepy, the
lid hung lazily over his sparkly blue eye like a hammock.
Recently it has been taking me longer to blink. The left eye
works wonderfully, but the right eye is a beat behind. It has to work a bit
harder to reopen, because apparently, my right eyelid is starting to sag. I’m a
little surprised, and I’m not sure why. Everything is right on track. I am the
same age dad was when his lid gave away, and right about now he started to creak,
get hair in weird places, and spend the afternoon in a lawn chair, reading the
news, eating triple cream brie and drinking white wine. And my hair, of course,
is not naturally brown.
My dads old friends still tell me I like Stu, and my heart
still swells with pride. When I
close my eyes I can still recall his clear and gentle voice. But when I open my
eyes, the right lid gets stuck and takes that extra millisecond to open. So to remember my dear dad I don’t even
need to look in the mirror, or at his photos. To be reminded of my lovely father, all I need to do is
blink.
