That’s what I would title a movie about my dad’s time here on Earth. It describes him and his antics perfectly. Big man, big voice, big laugh, big heart, big guts, big temper at times… big. Big in every way. Larger than life in the broadest, and richest sense of that phrase.
The opening scene would be that small old woman standing in Dad’s dining room at Thanksgiving. Two months after she couldn’t be bothered to attend his funeral she was staying in his house, eating off his dishes, sitting where he sat. Her condescension thinly – and poorly – veiled as compassion. I stared a hole in her wrinkled forehead as she squinted to force a single tear out of her left eye.
Dad told us a story about having dinner with Andre the Giant. They had mutual friends in the bodybuilding world, and had all gone to dinner after an event. Jovial is the word he used to describe Andre. A large, happy man who drank enough liquor to kill a “regular” sized man. I loved that story, and the way he told it. Dad’s life was incredible, he didn’t have to lie about it. I don’t have proof of his exploits, mostly because in those days people didn’t document themselves getting into mischief. They didn’t live in a time of cellphones and selfies and Instagram posts. They just lived. Cool things happen and then people moved on with their lives. I envy that, in a way.
That woman – the one maligning my father while standing in the kitchen his hands built – told me that Dad had a big ego, that he told exaggerated versions of stories to make them more incredible, that she understood that a man like him “needed those things to be true”, so she allowed him that.
I laughed in response. Imagining a version of my dad like the one she was describing to me, I couldn’t hold it in. If there’s one thing that I know about my father, it’s that he wasn’t the kind of man who anyone “allowed” to do anything. He did what he wanted. Anyone who had the good fortune of spending any time with him can avow that given a choice between asking forgiveness or asking permission, my dad would choose to charm his way to a pardon every time.
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Stuff I don’t know where to put:
It’s true that he mellowed, as we do, with age and the birth of grandchildren and that meant that his wants changed. Still, there was a little spark that shown in his smile. That ever-so-slight dimple on his right cheek that appeared when he was amused with himself, confirming that if the choice was between forgiveness or permission, he was going to be asking forgiveness every time.
Attitude Soup 