Kevin
My nerves are raw tonight. I need to tell you about my step dad. The echos of my past are raining upon my soul. How can you quantify one person’s influence on your life? I speak in a grand and flowery manner, and he deserves that.
Before I became an adult, before I became… what I am now, I had a friend who was so kind to me. Kevin was a rock, man. He was my dad. We were all trying to figure out how to make this situation work (Single mom, me the kid, Kevin). I remember when I was young, really young (about 5), and we were living on Sherman st. and we were having dinner. I had a favorite glass that had Dino from the Flintstones on it, and he got up from the table and knocked it over and broke it. He was really upset(upset with himself), and I got up from the table and walked over to him and said something to the effect of ” It’s ok, It’s only a glass.” And he started crying, and he said “Well, thank you, Josh.” I never knew what that meant, but this has stuck with me my entire life, one of those jarring things that sticks into the ribs of your soul, that you’ll always remember. And I still don’t know what it means, but it’s a point of pure empathy that he had for me, and I for him. Why was he crying? Why was I crying? Why am I crying when I write this? We took a trip once that lasted for 2 months, which If you’re 5, is about 2 years. We went to California. We took several trips to Montana. We went to Arizona. We went to the Grand Canyon. We went on bike rides. I puked on his jeans in the four corners.
We went everywhere, man, we went everywhere. For about 7 years in my life, I had that thing of family, and he was the glue. The last time I saw him we went on a trip, in the spring of 2008. He came out to Oregon with my little sis, we went to the coast, and we were there during low tide. We were running on the rocks during low tide (which he cajoled us into doing), and we encountered a group of sea lions. He and I ended up in between the females and the males (Which is bad luck, and fairly dangerous). I was trying to impress upon him the fact that we needed to get out of there(Actually ,I think I said ” uhh….I think we should get the fuck outta here, man), and he said , as he was laughing “ya, this isn’t too smart!” But damn if he wasn’t having fun, so we walked back to the beach, and then promptly went to a more dangerous tidal pool a few miles down the road.
I miss that man, mostly. I mourn the time we never had in between the Dino glass and his death. But I’m happy, happy that he had people in his life to run around the dangerous tidal pools with. I was worried that he didn’t have that. But …awh, one of those things where you’re wrong, chief. I miss that I didn’t see the in between. The in between is all that matters. All we are is the in between.
Kevin had model trains in his basement, and I tore the track down, so my little sister could live their, and make the house something new, for her. So here’s some music I wrote with trains.
That’s good, Josh. I’m sorry I didn’t see this before. I glad you got to mourn, finally. I’m also sad for the in between as well. Our in between and yours, all the in between’s. Lets not let that happen anymore.