grey skies and lost words

Tags

family, father, first typewriter, love, miscellaneous, old typewriter, random, thoughts, typewriters, writing

The grey skies overhead are very befitting of my thoughts and feelings today. On this day last year my father had slipped into a coma and it was only a matter of hours before he died. I was restless all day, not wanting to lose him with so much still left unsaid and much more still not known about him, but I didn’t want him to suffer any longer and hoped that he would soon be pain-free.

I tried to get my mind off the sadness that is weighing on my heart today by reorganizing my study, but now all I have succeeded in doing is have piles of files, stationary and folders filled with bills and who knows what cluttering up the floor, desk, guest-bed and shelves. But while I was tearing up old paperwork and trying to figure out why I kept certain things my eye fell on my fathers old typewriter.

My dad was an old-fashioned hack through and through. He loved the news and adored words and phrases, but he never really was one for computers and always wrote on a real typewriter. When I was about 8 years-old he gave me my first typewriter, a black one with a lid and carrying handle, not so dissimilar from the one that now lives under my desk. I remember how excited I was and how many sheets of paper I filled with random strings of letters as I really couldn’t type. I tried to emulate my dad and type letters and articles but half way through a sentence I’d get fed up with the fact that things where going too slow and hammer away like mad thing pretending I was in a busy newsroom, writing nothing that made any sense but having the time of my life.

So while I sit here in my chaos missing the man I once knew and loved so much my hands stroke the hard plastic cover on his old typewriter and my eyes fill up with tears. I can’t help but miss him and wonder what else he would have written if he had had the time and long with all my heart for just one more letter in the post typed by him and filled with the stories he told. And what wouldn’t I give to read the few last lines scrawled in pen, telling me he’d love me always and sealed this promise with X’s and O’s .

As thoughts and memories of him flood my mind all I can think is that I will always love him too and seal it with my own silent hugs and kisses and mourn all the lost words still left between us.