shadows in an old photograph

i received a picture of my dad in the mail in a publication where he went to college. it was an older black and white photo. i have seen that photo before but he almost seems unfamiliar. when i calculated the year of the photo i realized i would have been in second grade.

i tried real hard to remember life with him when i was that old. i looked at the picture trying to find the familiar things i remember with white knuckled determination. it is harder now. he died in 1976 and one of my greatest fears in losing him was that i would forget something i wanted to remember - the things i wanted to take with me the rest of my life. i think i wanted him to remain my dad and be with me in my life through the collection of experiences; so in the place of flesh and blood i would embrace memories and stories. this was a way death was defeated. this was a way i could fight to keep him with me when he was gone. death would not win. but i am afraid i am forgetting something.

i looked hard at the picture. it bothered me a little that he now seems so far away. what does it mean if i am not remembering things as well. i was wondering yesterday if i have collected enough memories to last the rest of my life. what will i remember in ten years and what will i forget. what will matter as i live into a future of being an old man, living into the years that he never reached. i can only imagine what kind of old man he would be...what kind of father, husband, grandpa or great-grandpa he would be.

i have more questions now than answers. would he have ever stopped preaching...would he still like the lakers and the cardinals...would he still sing robustly off-key...would he still want to play catch...would he still say he loved me or that he was proud of me...would he still care about changing the world...would he still leave notes for my mom to wake up to...would he still talk about the horses he trained or the farm he tilled...would he still grow tomatos and change his own oil in his car?

he has been gone so long. i survived without him. i can only imagine in a fictional way what he would be like now, and there is only a little pleasure in imagning how that might be. fictions can be useful but they are not satisfying. before i put the picture down i realized that i am even now older than he is in the picture, which feels odd. what is this feeling i have as i realize that i am living and doing things that he only got to hope for, even wondering what that would have meant to him.

the picture is still on the kitchen table. i have looked at it several times. i showed it to my wife and son and spoke of the feeling of him being a little unfamiliar after all these years. it is like i am remembering less than who he was. it makes me angry. it is like i am only hanging onto failing memories and thinner stories now, in these days. i don't know what to think if i am only remembering shadows and echoes of what was a real person, whose absence i grieved and whose presence shaped who i am. i don't know what i feel about this, but it must be more than anger.