“I want to be just like you, Daddy.”
The words are not unexpected. He has seen them in books, heard them in movies, and experienced them in a hundred memories shared by other fathers.
But these words, these particular words are different.
They do not march across an otherwise inert sheet of paper, or dance in cinematographic splendor with a matching orchestral accompaniment, or shroud themselves in the life of another.
They hang in the air, framed by wide, open eyes and cheeks still slightly rounded with infancy. The voice that gives them life is high, squeaky almost, sincere in a way that is both foreign and beautiful to the father.
Foreign because there is no echo in the father’s own memories. His memories of a father are not of one man, but a fractured mess spanning a crowd of men each with only an ephemeral presence in his past.
Foreign because the father never uttered such words as a son. Never wanted to be anything but different than his pretend fathers.
But the words are beautiful too.
Beautiful because the father always hoped for this moment. Always hoped for a son with wide eyes and a sweet voice, with a face unscarred by sarcasm, regret, hatred, and pain.
Beautiful because in his son’s life, the father redeems his own past.
Philadelity 