Lad&Dad

Here's on from last week. Our prompt was to write about two out of three picture the teacher put up for us to see.

  I could recall the days from Lad & Dad weekend with my old boy scout troupe. They sit there on the very edge of my memory. Most of the time I can’t even tell the difference between the genuine memories and memories generated or fortified by pictures. Pictures like my favorite one of my father and me. It was taken on the first day of the camp when we were told to take a picture with our fathers that expressed our relationship for all the other pairs to see.
  I was young, only eight, but a spitting image of my father. I had no reason to doubt my mother for this reason. And the picture we took showed this beautifully. Dad and I had the same red sweater on, with a white shirt underneath. We’re sitting back to back in the picture, looking off in different directions. It’s nearly impossible to tell when my sandy curls became his sandy curls; they were the same shade, same texture. Although I’m younger in the photo, and I hadn’t grown into my own body and dad had a thick beard, it’s clear that we have the same jaw line and cheek structure. Our ears even stick out from under our hair in the same spot.
  I’ve loved that picture since before it was taken. I knew it was going to be good, in my head, as I sat there leaning against dad to take it. I’ve never tried, but if I posed the same way as my dad, took a picture of it, and photoshopped it into this picture on top of dad, you wouldn’t tell a difference. I’ve grown up to look just like him. My mother hates me for it.
  Well, she doesn’t hate me. At least she hasn’t used that exact phrase…but I know it’s hard for her to look at me and not see him. It’s almost as if she’s frightened; she hasn’t looked me directly in the eyes since he’s left us. Perhaps she’s scared I’ll grow up not only to look like him, but to think like him as well.
I guess I’ll never know. My father and I never talked much. There weren’t ever any heart to hearts. Never a birds and bees talk. Never anything man to man. So I never had a much of a chance to really know him. I know him about as well as anyone else does. Anyone could look at this picture of us and know him as well as I do. And I’m his only son. Only child.
  He did keep a journal. Avidly. He’d write at least every day if not more. And this journal intrigues me to no end. If I could only get my hands on all the ones he filled up with his deepest thoughts. Maybe then I’d have some clue to who he was. Then I’d know what he thought of me. And mom. And things like that picture. Or his reasons for why he’s gone now.

  To find the journals, though, would be like the most morbid and awful thing to do to someone. The journals are gone. Mom wanted to bury them with him, against my utmost objections, and she got her way.                

It’s been about a year and a half since he killed himself and the dreams have calmed. They aren’t harsh images of the time I ran into his room to find mom crying over him. The most recent and memorable one is just me. I’m at the lake from Lad & Dad where our picture was taken. At least I think it’s me. I look just like dad, so it’s sometimes hard to tell. The dream consists of me standing there in the woods looking for something. I haven’t decided if I’m looking for dad, or if he’s looking for me.  It’s usually cold and there’s a wind that goes straight through my red sweater.

  All I remember upon waking up is that feeling of loss, but now I see that the true feelings of confusion aren’t from what I’ve lost; they come from what I’ve never had.
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I'm sort of iffy on this one. It's so heavy.