Father’s Day

In Lieu of I Love You

How Aladdin made me grateful for my father

In my younger and more vulnerable years, my father took me to see Aladdin in a movie theater. It was Christmas Eve, and I was five years old. I never gave the evening so much as a second of scrutiny over the thirty intervening years, but now my head is ripe with glimpses of that night.

This is not a sad story. My father is still very much alive, and he was never one to skip town under the pretense of going out for a pack of cigarettes. He has always been firmly in the frame in all our family photos.

That’s not to say that he is my best friend. I don’t think my father has best friends. He’s a reserved man, the sort of Dad that might offer six I-love-yous in a lifetime.

I don’t often turn to him for advice, but once in a blue moon he casually drops pieces of his life philosophy.

Take two years ago. The bar I manage was losing money, and I took a big risk. I built a stage, bought sound and lighting equipment, redecorated the walls, and transformed the sputtering sports bar into a live music venue. None of my fellow managers expressed enthusiasm for this project, but their apathy created a suitable vacuum for my endeavor.

Our first show was attended by three people. The second show was worse. I began to hear the words ‘reckless’ and ‘irresponsible’ whispered behind my back. They were sneering at my little dream.

When my father asked how the music was going, I mentioned my frustrations. “You’ll know it’s working when you hear them say it was their idea,” he said.

Last weekend we had two shows at full capacity, thanks to our newfound reputation as one of the best live music bars in the city. During the Friday show I overheard an owner — a man who I recall being particularly pessimistic — bragging to a bar regular. “There’s no live music in this neighborhood, so I decided it was time to shake things up.”

I might have encouraged the owner to go suck a lemon. Thanks to my father, I laughed. It must be working.

Here’s another nugget of my father’s unwitting wisdom. On a recent visit to my parent’s condo, I dropped my phone on the ground. When I bent over to pick it up, I winced. My back has been sore, a dull ache that roams between passive and paralytic. My father noticed.

“What’s going on there?”

“Nothing. My back has been sore lately.”

“That’s the best your back is going to feel for the rest of your life.”

Thanks, jerk. I dismissed the remark as merely an old man one-upping a young man’s afflictions, but the words stayed with me long enough to discover their layers.

Instead of commiserating — or explaining the boons of pills and ice packs — my father expressed in his own Dadish manner that suffering is the nature of existence. You can wallow in misery, or you can accept all woes as relative, and learn to appreciate life as a series of perpetually imperfect situations.

My father has had several knee surgeries, and a recent diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis. He knows about paralytic pain. But there he was, standing and smiling, seemingly at peace.

He didn’t say: ‘You’re going to be okay’. He said: ‘You are okay,” and I’ve decided he was right.

What does this all have to do with Aladdin? Admittedly little, except this: if my father has taught me to be grateful for back pain, and grateful when others take credit for my ideas, then Aladdin has taught me to be grateful for my father.

Understand this: my father hates Aladdin.

There’s absolutely nothing about that movie that suits his interests. I’ve never seen him watch a cartoon. Not the Flintstones, not the Simpsons, not Scooby Doo. He does not belong to the generation of adults that consume entertainment intended for children — those dads that dawn mouse ears and fly to Disney World even after their kids are grown up.

Most of all, the man despises musicals. My father knows Oklahoma as a state and nothing else. His hills are not alive with the sound of music.

It is easier for me to picture my father French kissing a cactus than it is to imagine him sitting through ninety minutes of lamps, genies, and magic carpets. His eye sockets must have ached from how hard he rolled his eyes during A Whole New World. Worst of all, good sense wouldn’t let him turn to his youngest son and say: “You’re not buying this nonsense, are you?”

It’s tempting to believe it never happened. Maybe this is a false recollection, a daydream that echoes in the mind until it becomes a memory. I decided to ask.

“Do you remember taking me to see Aladdin on Christmas Eve?”

“Yup.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

“Not particularly.”

That leaves only one reason that man would have taken me to see that movie.

Love you too Dad.

Here’s another little thing I wrote:

Enjoy this vivid piece on compassion from Shirley Laffa: