My 2 Second Shelf Life

Me and Tata


Yesterday, while I was driving along the lakeshore, I pulled up next to a car and the driver looked like my father.

I have been estranged from my father for 20 years.
Since in my minds eye, he will always look like he did the last time I saw him, I would probably not fully recognize him if I saw him now.

I got a pang of melancholy.

People would say (even I) that,
“it doesn’t matter”.
“He wasn’t really a father to you”
“he’s essentially a stranger”.

All of these things would be, and are true.
But when you think that you see someone, who loomed so large but absent for so many years.

Even though you are an adult.
Even though he wasn’t really a father to you.
Even though he’s essentially a stranger.

Just for a split second, you wish it were him…

So that you could make him pull over, and tell him how well you did despite him.

Fathers matter.
Even though some people say that they don’t.

They do.