Walking in the Footsteps of a Child

This is a poem I wrote a couple of years ago for my dad. He´s in the hospital right now recovering from a mild heart attack. I called him the other day and he seemed in good spirits, not particularly surprised at what had happened. I wasn´t either. He´s treated himself like shit for years, smokes, drinks and doesn´t exercise, having been told that it´ll kill him. He had an operation a few years ago (5? 7?) to unblock some clogged arteries, and was told to give up his bad habits. I´m sure that operation cost Canadian taxpayers a few bucks and I´m inclined to say fuck it man, you had your chance, the next one´s on you. But hey, that´s not how it works, and I´m glad. I´m glad to say too that in the last few years my dad has finally found his groove. He´s found his path to ¨god¨, bought a sewing machine and makes quilts as well as his own outfits, he´s a local celebrity, well-known for his uncompromising committment to his own style of drag (he´s just a man in a dress, get over it, and no, he will not shave his beard), is on a baseball team, consistently avoids stressful situations, has the most long weekends per year out of anyone I know, spends more time sitting outside with a coffee in all weather than anyone I know, feeds himself, washes himself, and has his own MySpace website. The guy has a good time, seven days a week, and that´s fucking awesome.

My dad used to pick me up from daycare occassionally. Jesse Ketchum School is about 5 min walk from the Metro Reference Library in downtown Toronto, where he works. We´d walk down Bay Street and across Cumberland or Bloor Street until we got to Yonge St. and the Library entrance. On the way, there were always a lot of cars, it was rush hour. I´ve always had a strong sense of self-preservation and have, on occasion, attempted to injure my father. He was sort of like a new kidney, took awhile to get accustomed to, but after a few probing fork attacks was deemed acceptable and allowed to continue carrying out his function. One day when the traffic was particularly heavy, we were walking hand in hand along the sidewalk on Bloor Street, and I told him that, since he was older, he had a lot less to lose if, say, a car were to swerve out of control onto the sidewalk and wipe him out then and there, and that he should therefore switch places with me and walk closest to the road, absorbing any possible impact and saving me from an early death. He thought this was pretty funny.

Walking in the Footsteps of a Child

He told him once to walk on the outside;
It was because he was older, had lived longer,
And was therefore more prepared to die.

That´s what he told him, and that´s how he told it afterwards—
About a boy who wouldn´t walk on the outside edge
Anymore, when his dad, who had lived a lot longer,
Could take his place.

And that´s why when he was gone
His dad could never quite walk on the outside edge,
With nobody to protect but himself,
Nobody but a shadow of a boy, who once looked up to him
And smiled.