Oh Man! I’m glad Father’s Day is come and gone. Every time Father’s Day comes around, I do celebrate the awesomeness of my father, but it also reminds me that I’m not your traditional dad, much as I’d like to be. I wish I could have taken my kid out for a run, go surfing, go wind surfing, scuba diving, skiing. You know, all the stuff I used to do. I wish I could have taken the kid to Australia where I lived, to Paris where I lived. Oh well, I guess it wasn’t meant to be. I guess I could always show the kid how to be a doorstop.
You know, my mom did her best to try and keep me in the loop and be a traditional dad. She would get me to fly a kite with my kid, go fishing with my kid, try to teach my kid how to ride a bike. But, try and do all that stuff when you’re like me in a wheelchair. It’s kind of brutal, frustrating and quite frankly depressing. But my mom meant well.
You learn early on to have tools to defend yourself against depression. My tools of choice were humor and sarcasm. I remember the first time I used these tools. It was pretty funny. I was in the operating room, it was pretty heavy, and the surgeon said, do you mind if we take off a little hair. I said, don’t you have to shave my whole head. He said, no, that was back then. Now we just take a little hair off. I started laughing because I told my cousin they were gonna have to shave my whole head, so he shaved off all his hair for solidarity purpose. The guy was completely bald. I had all my hair, except for a 3 inch bare spot. When I got out of surgery, I said, I didn’t know Andrew Aggasi was here! I said, you look a lot like my cousin. It was pretty funny.
One other thing you should do if you’re going into surgery, anything serious: I carried a photo of my self and my kid and before they put me under, I showed the surgeon the photo and I said to him, “You can’t leave this kid without a dad.” And the guy said, “Don’t worry, I’ll give this photo back to you when you recover. I’ll include a copy of the photo. It’s hanging on my wall.
That’s it for this week. Above is an example of photos I’ve been taking. I just take pictures around my house.
Talk to you next week. Love, B. Nice