My father was named after Isaac, the biblical patriarch. It was a name he disliked, so he reversed the order of his first and middle names. If his full name was called for, he never spelled out Isaac, inscribing only the initial, I.
He was gone — a heart attack — before I was nine, leaving me to imagine the relationship that might have been. So I imagined a thousand Isaacs and a thousand histories. That was his gift to me, and his curse.
I’ve made the best of the bargain, pushing on in a restless way. But wherever I go, when I pause to reflect, I find to my surprise that I’ve circled back. A part of me will always be an eight-year-old boy who simply stopped, frozen in time . . . .
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A few weeks ago, D. A. Wolf of Daily Plate of Crazy invited me to participate in a series she’s hosting called “Fathers and Sons.” She’s asked several male writers to talk about their relationships with their fathers. My contribution, “Blessing from my father,” begins above. You can read the whole post and leave comments here: Daily Plate of Crazy–Blessing from my father.
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I’ll move on to the rest, but this first part is beautiful all in its own.
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A blessing on you.