Lost and Found
to my father, on his 80th birthday
I was five years old and we were at a fire department picnic at Eisenhower Park. It was a beautiful, sunny day and all the kids were off playing games while the grownups grabbed beers out of a huge tub and drank and ate and played cards under the trees. I had been reading on a kid-sized lounge chair and one of the older kids came by and pushed me off. I was surprised and hurt and angry. I scraped my knee on the dirt and even though I wanted to cry, I didn’t. I wanted to find you first and tell you what happened and have you make it all better. Only then would it be ok to cry.
I was little, even for five. I was a small speck in a sea of adults and everyone appeared to be larger than life in my panic to find you. All I saw were legs as I ran through our picnic area in search of you. I listened for your voice, watched for your jeans and white sneakers and made my way toward the grill where men were putting together sausage and pepper heroes, because you were the recognized chef of the fire department and surely that’s where you would be.
I thought I found you. I remember hearing what I thought was your voice. I remember the jeans and white sneakers. And I remember running toward those legs and throwing my arms around them and I was ready to release all my anger and skinned-knee pain and panic at not being able to find you when I looked up and realized in horror that it wasn’t you. It was some other man in jeans and white sneakers, turning sausage over on the grill. It wasn’t you.
The man, who I only vaguely recognized as being part of our group, looked down at me and said “honey, I’m not your father.” I was embarrassed and scared. I let go of his legs and ran away as fast as I could, all the way back to my little plastic lounge chair where I buried my head in a beach towel and cried.
My five year old brain went into worst case scenario mode and I thought about losing you forever, about walking the picnic ground for days and days and never finding you, never being comforted about my skinned knee, never watching a young boy get his comeuppance as you scolded him for pushing me off the chair, never getting that comforting, empathetic hug I so needed.
I remembered my grandmother — your mother — once telling me how lucky I should feel when you walked in the door from work at night because a lot of firemen never make it home, how I should pray for your safety every day and thank God when you came home.
I thought about losing you.
There were kids screaming in joy in the distance as the fire truck sprayed out a cooling stream of water at them. I buried my head further in the towel to drown them out. In my head I replayed the scene where I hug the wrong man’s legs over and over again. How could I mistake any man for you? You were the best father, the most fun father, the best joke-teller and hamburger maker there was. I bet that man I hugged didn’t even know the joke about making time fly. I bet he didn’t let his daughter stand on his feet as they danced to “In the Still of the Night.”
I thought about losing you.
I remember my breath coming in short spurts. I might have been hyperventilating. Maybe that was my first panic attack, the first of thousands. I got up again and scanned the crowd for you. I had an urgent need to see you, to make sure you were really there, that you didn’t mysteriously disappear, leaving behind a hundred men in jeans and white sneakers to look after me.
I found mommy and instead of telling her about my skinned knee and sense of panic, I just told her I needed to find you. Never mind for what, I needed you. Find him, I said. I was crying and mommy asked if I was hungry or needed a nap. No, I just needed my father. I needed you.
And there you were. You came toward me and I swear the crowd parted for you but I know that’s just my memory embellishing this part of the story because that’s the way it appeared to me then. All the men holding their beers and burgers moved aside while you walked toward me. You bent down and asked me what was wrong and I told you almost everything. I told you about the boy and my knee and how I hugged the wrong man and called him daddy and I apologized for that. You laughed a little bit at that. Then you found a first aid kit and got a band-aid for my knee and you hugged me, that hug I was waiting for, the kind of hug that said everything was ok and I was safe and you were safe and nothing bad was happening. At least not today. You told me to go play with the other kids, but I said I just wanted to read. You shrugged. “If that’s what you want to do, ok,” you said.
You hugged me again and I thought about losing you, about having to thank God when you came home from work, smelling like soot and smoke. I learned to love those smells because they meant you were home.
I went back to my lounge chair and picked up my book. I read, but I kept my eye out for you the whole time. The knowledge that you were there made me feel safe. It made me feel at home.
I still look for you in times of trouble. I’m still comforted by your hugs. I still want you to yell at the bad guys for me. And you’re still there, just like you were on that summer day, always comforting. Maybe sometimes you don’t understand why I do the things I do, but you always recognize my right to do things my way. “If that’s what you want to do, ok.”
Thank you for the hugs and the band aids and the silly jokes. Thank you for always being there for me, for your way of always knowing when I need you. We’ve been through a lot of skinned knees. I’m going to have many more. I can’t imagine my life without those hugs, without the comfort you provide, without you standing beside me in your jeans and white sneakers.
Happy birthday, dad.