Today marks fourteen years since my father died and I didn’t remember until my siblings posted it on Facebook. I never remember the date, but I do remember what I was wearing, where I was standing, and what I was doing in the beforetime —when I thought he was alive, though I mostly considered him dead to me. The moment I learned that he was dead to everyone I remember thinking I am holding a phone and wearing shorts and t-shirt and these things have touched me both when my dad was living and also when he wasn’t.
Yesterday a very short flash fiction piece I was writing was published. I’ve written lots of flash and until this piece had not published any of it. (#rejections) The story grew from a memory I have of the place we went on vacation when I was kid. My grandparents owned a house in a tiny town on a huge lake that was rumored to hide a monster. My dad taught me to skip rocks on that lake, and my memories of him there are mostly happy.
I write about my dad a lot, mostly as a distant, hazy character, usually as part of some metaphor. Although he doesn’t appear in this story in a concrete way, although the story itself is dark, it brings me to a place where I remember him with love.
the shape of me 