WRITING

      Oh, 'tis a season to be jolly! We have not seen Dad’s eyes this animated. Every Thanksgiving night, we would follow behind Dad like a flock of chickens as he lugged the Santa suit on the cement. Then he let the suit dangle over a sort of crucifix that he assembled on a wooden pole in the yard. Dad dressed it up on every occasion you could think of and treated it like his own piece of flesh. During Super Bowl week, the pole was dressed in a jersey and Rod’s helmet. Luke even had to ask for Dad’s permission when he wanted to take his own helmet off the pole. On the Fourth of July, the pole was Uncle Sam, on Veteran’s Day a soldier, and on Halloween a ghost. The pole was Dad’s only exception to being joyful. His demeanor relaxed and he smirked whenever he was working on the pole. However, we were only permitted a single Crayola at a time from his box of emotions. One Christmas Eve he shrieked at Timmy for wasting a slice of an apple. He hovered over us saying, “enough, enough, enough,” as we poured ketchup onto his plate. Birthday parties consisted of either cake or ice cream, never both. During the first and only time I brought a date over to our house she said, “what's with your Dad and that pole?” I simply laughed at her question; Dad’s shenanigans ruined the date for a woman I loved. 

      When we moved out, finally got married, and had children of our own, the seeds of meanness began to bloom within us. Once I shouted “enough, enough, enough,” to my children as they scrubbed more shampoo on each other in the bathtub. I immediately reflected and realized, oh my lord, I am beginning to sound like Dad! 

      I would still drive past Dad’s house every day. Subsequently, he dressed the pole with more complexity and less perceptible logic. He draped a fur rug over it on Groundhog Day and dragged out a floodlight to compose a shadow effect. When an Earthquake struck Chile, he tilted the pole and spray-painted a rift on the road. When Mum died, he dressed the pole in black cloth and hung photos of Mum as a baby on its crossbar. Occasionally we would stop by and find antique talismans from his youth arranged around the base of the pole. There were army medals, moldy theater tickets, torn sweatshirts, and tubes of Mum’s makeup. One autumn, he painted the pole bright yellow and glued red leaves on it. That winter, he covered it with cotton balls for warmth. The following spring, he provided the pole offspring by hammering in six miniature crucifixes around the yard. 

      During Dad’s final few months, he tied strings that connected the pole and the miniature crucifixes. He taped on the strings letters of apology, pleas for understanding, and confessions for his teenage shop theft, all written in frantic handwriting on index cards. He also painted a sign saying “LOVE” and hung it from the pole to another cross stick saying “FORGIVE.” Dad died next to the pole. We found his right arm resting towards the pole like he was fighting to hold onto it for his final grasp. We cleaned the house and sold it to a young couple. Although we requested the couple to preserve the pole as a memory of Dad, they yanked it out of the soil and left them by the road. I picked it up that afternoon and put it on Dad’s grave. Oh, how someone could adore a pole more than anything! The next day, my children and I kicked a soccer ball into the garden and found a wooden crucifix stuck in the soil. We were dumbfounded by its magical appearance, but it was like Dad never left.