Io sono figlio di mio padre

We talked about the man I’ve become. We talked about my childhood and how I’ve become this man that I am. We talked about the role he played in it. We talked about the man that he is and how similar we are…our faults and our strengths. We talked about his childhood and how he became the man that he is. We talked about his father…what kind of man he was and the role he played in my own father’s life.

We talked about women and relationships. We talked about what makes relationships work and why they fail. We talked about the chemical, sexual attraction that can bring people together or tear them apart. We talked about the deeper bond and friendship that keeps people together when all else is falling apart. We talked about how my parents relationship began and how it has lasted so long. We talked about how his father and mother’s relationship began and how she has lasted so long after he died so young.

We talked about throwing caution to the wind and living free and living reckless. We reminisced about hitchhiking from California back home to Pennsylvania, and jumping in planes to Puerto Rico without any money or any plan, and being sick and lost in Spain without a place to sleep, and rolling with a rough crowd and then rolling with the inevitably rough consequences.

We talked about living responsibly and with integrity. We talked about our careers and our futures. We talked about taking care of those we love and giving to those we don’t even know out of gratitude for what we have. We talked about right and wrong…and certainty and doubt about each. We talked about what our culture tells us and what the world sells us. We talked about listening to our hearts and refusing to buy any lies.

We didn’t talk about Bah-Bisco or Space Eggs but we laughed about Bear Trap and Bulldozer and Crazy Hat Day.

We drank beer and sangria. He drank tequila and I drank scotch. We ate burgers on the Upper East Side and had tapas downtown. We shopped for motorcycles out in Queens and we played some guitar in Union Square. We talked about tattoos in the ink shop on St. Marks to the tune of the needle gun. We played pool in the East Village to the tunes on the jukebox. In Soho, we browsed new and improved technology and then talked about an ancient and timeless God.

This is what Father-Son Day looks like for Alphonso and me these days. We did so many things that so many people don’t get to experience with their parents or their children. We’re blessed beyond worded description.

I learned so much on this day, but one thing is absolutely clear: I am my father’s son.

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