Happy 58th

From your son, with love.

The music filled every nook and cranny of the cobbled street, reverberating between the buildings that lined that well-trod path on which countless other visitors, like you and me, have walked — or rather, stumbled — in their attempt to find happiness. I guess I was guilty of it, too — the drunken stumbling and the searching for a means to be content with it all. Perhaps you did the same before I got here, a few years too late, in this exact spot and in the same bars I was drinking in. I wish I took the time to ask you what it was like, what you did, how it all made you feel.

I was eighteen and it all moved like a blur. I didn’t know what to do or how to say it.

Five years later, I was trying to find glimpses of you in every stranger I met. In every song sung, dance performed, shot drank, and card flipped. In every laugh or little Irish blessing there was a piece of you there, but it would vanish before I could grasp it. I was chasing something that I would never be able to catch, but still it felt good to be here, in this place where you once traversed, sprained ankle and all, in between chemo treatments, dancing to Sweet Dreams.

You were with your sisters, I was with two friends you never got to know.

I think we talked about it once. I think I told you that if we ever had the chance to go back there together that we’d get matching tattoos. So, I put some ink in my flesh to fulfill a promise that I had made to myself. A promise that if I ever got to that place, I’d make sure I’d leave with a mark to prove it. As if to say, “Here, Mom, I told you!” And when I saw you again, in some snug somewhere in town, I’d show you and we’d laugh and smile and cry and go out again looking for a new adventure.

I walked along the Liffey picturing the scene. Later, I thought I saw you sitting at the bar, ordering a Rum and Coke.

Through Carole King and The Chicks (back when they were from Dixie) and that one Young Dubliners CD, I got my education in music from the back of the car. Those sounds always had a way of bringing to life the moments that otherwise seemed so hollow. You recognized that better than anyone. You let music in and let it fill your life and emanate joy to everyone around you — yes, even to your begrudging sons. You didn’t take “no” for an answer when you made us practice your choreographed routines. And on nights like this in Temple Bar, I’m grateful for that.

I let the music wash over me and I let the whiskey move me to the songs of my youth. I didn’t care how I looked because I felt closer to you.

You danced here once, too. But your face wasn’t quite yours. It was so tired — tired of the journey you had endured to get to that point, tired of the drugs and tests and the bullshit life put you through. But there you were, happy, in a place so welcoming. Against all odds, you still had that same spark — the one I try to find every day in those around me, so I can remind myself, “Oh yes. That’s how it felt.” Because when Eileen loved you, nothing else seemed to matter. You were the only person in the universe.

I put down another pint of Guinness and smiled. This was home, 5,000 miles away.

You were with me when I walked along that beach. The sun was shining brightly over my back and I stared into the Irish Sea, thinking about all the things I never told you, all the life we never got to have. I felt guilty as I tried to remember all those moments we shared together because the details have grown so hazy. I haven’t heard the sound of your voice in so long that they all just seem like dreams now. But you told me to let it go.

I took your advice. I ordered an Irish coffee and sat by the coast. It was terrible. I forgot to add cream and sugar.

Through the the warmth and the bitterness of my drink, I couldn’t help but feel grateful. Because of you, I know what true strength looks like. I know love and friendship and silliness and sacrifice. And in the times when I can’t seem to find those perfect words, or when I’m overcome by self-doubt or paralyzed by grief, I remind myself that you gave me all I need to keep going. So on I go, strolling through the grass as green as the pancakes you used to make us on St. Patrick’s Day.

I just wished you were here to feel it all with me. But I know I’ll see you in that snug again.

I boarded the train with my mates. Back to Dublin for another day.