Father's Day 2015

Were he alive, my father would not have been on Facebook.

He lived in three dimensions, not two.

He guzzled cheap beer when he was healthy and sipped blackberry brandy when he wasn't.

He cut firewood in the late fall, sometimes with an axe sometimes with a chainsaw but always with snot dripping from his nose.

I stacked the wood, going from annoyance to indignation until I finally came out the other end

With pride.

I held flashlights while he skinned his knuckles

On everything.

Late evening he'd watch the ballgame with a beer.

I'd trace the veins on his hands, smell the Old Spice on his face and the bubbles in his glass. The wounds on his hands seemed so fresh but not once

Not ever did I ever hear him

Complain and never

Not ever did I see him

-flinch.