Rounding the Darkside and in the Home Stretch

It has been said that no man ever really feels his own mortality as vibrantly as he does after his father dies. I am here to affirm this, at least, in my case it hit me like a ton of bricks the second I hung up from "the call" from my sister Kathy this past April 14th at about 3:30pm PST. I gasped for a breath and slowly emoted a low howling cry the a few tears but I beyond exhaling at that exact point in time that the whole process of moaning and crying at this expected news was choaked out like a 4 barrel hit with too rich a blend of nitrous. Days passed with only small waves of total and utter panic that would overcome me at the thought of living out from under the protective shadow of my Father's simple existence. Pop had always been the toughest SOB I knew in real life or in fiction. Nobody was tougher, more obstinate, more instintualy correct about everything he spoke of for he only spoke in facts. He only thought in factual black and white. There was no room for gray areas or colors in his world. It was as if he only had a binary emotional range and even though I saw the colors and gray areas all around his logic from a very early age, I took solace in the certainty of his convictions.