I don't have a lot of time these days. School started a few weeks ago and I already feel like I'm drowning again. But I just noticed the date and it reminded me of a thought I had the other day so this will be brief.
Today is my father's birthday.. well it would have been. He would have been 69 years old today. It's so strange for me to think about, my parents being senior citizens. They never made it that far, maybe that is why I have a hard time imagining what it will be like to get old.
The reason I mention this is because the strangest thing happened yesterday when I got on the elevator at work. As the door closed and inhaled through my nose, I noticed a faint scent and in my head decided the person who had been on the elevator before me must have been a mechanic or something similar. I don't have a lot of memories of my dad. But that smell is one of them.
I never really had much time with my father. He and my mother divorced when I was five, my mom moved us out of state when I was ten, he was in prison from age thirteen until I was around twenty. After that I still lived out of state and saw him rarely. He was also a man with a very tough exterior, I didn't see many emotions other than anger or the occasional laugh. As he grew older I noticed him soften, I even saw him cry the one time I went to visit him while incarcerated. I knew that he loved me but never felt the same connection as I did with my mom. But that smell took me right back to him.
He worked as a mechanic for most of his life and while visiting him on the weekends he would spend most of his time working on something or another in the garage. So generally I have two memories of my father that have stuck with me. One is that when I was very young he had two Harley Davidson motorcycles and I would love when he decided to take a break and take me on a ride. The second is the one that came to mind as those elevator doors closed. No matter when I saw him...he always had dirt under his fingernails, a gray tint to his hands, and that faint smell of motor oil lingered around him.
That's really all there is to say... I wish there were more to this story.. maybe had he lived to see my return to Texas I could have gotten to know him better. I hope that if he is watching that he has at least gotten to know me better... and is proud of the person I have become.
