lions, no tigers, and bears.

there are things that elude you. life gets in the way. you stop checking your calendar. time stops mattering because there are things that need to be worked out in your head, things that exhaust you. you crave your bed, the couch, a place to sit where you can rest your head on the palm of your hand propped up by your elbow--anywhere you can close your eyes for just a minute. everything is hazy. your thoughts are like so much tangled yarn and, intimidated, you stop trying to smooth it all out. you were never good at knitting anyway. you tuck the yarn away in a basket.

and then you look at your calendar again. there are the notations, the reminders, the scheduled appointments. more importantly, there are the omissions. today, august 6th, is highlighted in green. green is the color you used to highlight your favorite thursdays, pay days, until you realized that, somewhere along the line, you fucked up. now, your favorite thursdays are highlighted in pink. otherwise, today's box is plain white, lined, empty. the omission? today would have been your father's birthday. 47.

it's not like, had he been alive and out of jail (his release date was set for november of last year), you would have called. now that he's gone, you think about him more. absence makes the heart grow fonder, indeed, but you had your reasons. regardless, time marches on, and the man who gave you your nose, your penchant for rebellion, the comfort you took in quiet time alone, has been gone for over a year. he never lived to see his 46th year, either. all that's left now are some trinkets, all tiny: a brass replica of an old school diver's helmet, a carved ivory bear, a carved jade lion, a dream catcher necklace with a pewter bear on it, and a vial of ashes.

there is a handful of photos too, but something about all of them seems subdued...




with my godmother. that tattoo on his arm? a lion because he was a leo. later, he would have "bear," his nickname, added under it in script.

the wedding. my mother was eighteen, and gorgeous.

5/6/83, he was twenty years old.

after he died, this was the image that came immediately to my mother's mind and, ultimately, the reason i pulled these photos from my old album and scanned them in.



approx. 5/89, with my grandfather, the man who took to the task of raising me as his own.

more recent, sometime between 2000-2005. i didn't speak to him for a period of three or so years after high school. but my grandmother sent this to me after he died.

12/24/05, the last (and only) photo i ever took of him. it was christmas eve, the year i graduated college. my diploma was a big deal. he made an appearance to tell me how proud he was. he'd just been in a bar brawl and i thought the black eye was the funniest thing. he went to prison soon after.

a mug shot, circa 11/07. he'd started to get sick around august of that year, but there was nothing we could do to get him the medical care he needed. i surprised him with a visit on christmas day, knowing it would be the last time i saw him. this photo prepared me. once robust, the skin on his face was taut, his eyes sunken. his belly was pregnant with fluid that wasn't being drained fast enough. he fell through the cracks.

he died on 3/1/08. a month later, after the fight with the prison system, we dropped his ashes over the old seven mile bridge in the keys. i couldn't do it on my own. my mom had to help me. the ashes lingered just long enough for me to take a photo.

but really, how do you capture the character, in snapshots, of someone who's larger than life? how to document those sparks before they fade away? seems pretty impossible.

happy birthday, dad.