My Father’s Shoes

Week One: My Father’s Shoes 

And now I think of my daddy, he wore these kinds of shoes.

And after all this time I think I know him.

I’d like to say I love him, but the time has passed away.

What are the words I can say?

--Leon Russell, My Father’s Shoes, from Will ‘o the Wisp

A few years ago, after we returned from living in Europe for ten months, I was determined to lose weight. Being a fat guy has its perks, but mostly it comes with being out of breath and unable to do many simple tasks easily. So I walked. And rode my bike. And listened to Internet radio. As well as it worked, the fat guy survived, and he didn’t much like what was going on, for sure.

One thing that was going on was a renewed sense of clarity, and believe it or not, it was helped along by Internet radio. Every day I heard a song and a lyric that I knew and loved. And so it was on one of those walks that I decided to dust off my blog. Walking seems like a mindless endeavor. It’s not. Walking actually allows the mind to engage. The song lyrics act as a guide. Every day, with no exception, I hear a song and allow myself the pleasure that accompanies a stream of consciousness. One thing leads to another, and that’s how I got the idea to write each day based on a particular, significant lyric. (As it turned out each day was too ambitious, so my intention changed. Each week I selected a poignant lyric and tried to explain why it mattered.)

Here is my first entry:

On any given day I might listen to a dozen or more songs, and by using Pandora Internet radio, the free version, I get to select the style of music I hear. What I can’t control with Pandora is the frequency they play certain songs. For example, if I never hear The Band perform The Weight another time, I will still have heard it more than the rest of the world’s population combined! That’s OK because even though they have their favorites, so do I, and although it is possible to hear Stairway to Heaven too many times, I don’t think I can ever reach my limit with guys like Leon Russell.

Speaking of Leon, just last week I learned of his recent health issues, so I guess hearing My Father’s Shoes seemed even more significant. It seems like only Leon can deliver a belly punch like this one. “Daddy” is Southern, and I guess it’s Oklahoman too, but when my wife references me to our adult children, she calls me “Daddy.” Southern women do that. “Daddy used to say…” “Don’t you remember that Daddy had one of them…” And when you couple that with “he wore these kinds of shoes” I think I know what Leon meant. So often…waaaay often…I ask myself how my father would have handled whatever is facing me whether it’s how to loosen a stuck fitting or handle the pervasive rudeness available almost everywhere in public these days. (Just this week one for my nephews wondered aloud how my father would have reacted to Facebook. Not well is my guess, but you get my point.)

But the line that gets me is this one: I’d like to say I love him, but the time has passed away. With Leon, the sword seems always to cut both ways. Is it that I’d like to, but I can’t because he’s gone; or is it that I’d like to, but I just can’t because the damage lingers. And besides, in either case…what are the words I can say?

That’s the issue: the words. Words linger while feelings fade. Recently I spoke at length with a man who is as much my brother as my daddy’s other son. To coin another Southern phrase, he’s going through a “rough patch”. On second thought, rough patch doesn’t capture it. At this point rough would be a relief. What he is experiencing is a personal hell reserved to people who simply don’t deserve it.

We talked, and besides wanting to somehow reach through my laptop to grab his throat and slap reality back into his head, mostly I listened. Here’s the weirdest part—oh there were more weird parts than most people can imagine—my daggone Skype wasn’t working as designed, so even though he could see me looking at my computer, all I saw was a blank, gray screen and my own reflection in the glass. In other words, I got to see me, too. That’s weird, right? In essence I could see what he saw but as weirdly, it occurred to me that I saw even more.

Over and over he mentioned the words that had been exchanged. It’s natural. “Then she said…” “Then I said…” “Then I told her…” Rightly or wrong, I realized that he was hoping beyond reality that words could somehow fix the things that are killing him. What are the words I can say?

Leave it to Leon to remind me that in this case although the damage has been done, it is not too late to say I love him. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzFnN38CD0U