The Fighter Pilot, a Belated Father’s Day Card

This week, I walked into the same antique store I’d walked into with my father about two years ago.

The memory raced through my head of that day as it had in so many days past, Dad now gone, my second Father’s Day without him lingering drearily in my rearview mirror like a storm that will brew again in another year.

The antique store we’d visited wasn’t your traditional antique store with fine China everywhere and items you don’t dare touch.  Sure, it had its fair share of that but this store in question, resting in the heart of downtown Plant City, boasts far more pop art: collectibles, baseball cards, record albums, vintage clothing, books, toys, neon signs, all surrounded by four walls and the stale smell of one’s old belongings.

It is a fun afternoon out, at least it was for us that June day.

Dad could still get around semi-well the time we walked in there, although slower movement and hospice care were both right around the proverbial corner, Dad having to cautiously maneuver his walker around the narrow aisles, careful not to knock over anything we might end up paying for. Quebrar es comprar.

Dad regularly wore his plain white baseball cap, with no logo, to shield him from the sun.  Always the sly one, he ducked into one of the antique nooks while I browsed around.  He came out wearing this, one of my favorite photos of him, only months before he passed.

His unforgettable smile and spirit, as if to say, fuck you, cancer, you can’t stop me from having fun with my son on this special day.  Your unbearable aches and pains can wait.

He placed the leather fighter pilot cap back on the shelf where from where he found it, but never picked up his white baseball cap.

We’d left it behind.

We never went back to get it, finding him an altogether new one on another fun day of shopping with the family.

But I never stopped thinking about his white cap, or the fighter pilot cap, or the moment he’d slipped it on for the photo opportunity and how hard we’d laughed.

Once we were done shopping, we sat on the bench outside the store, resting and catching our breath.  I was waiting on a phone call from his change in hospice care.  I’ll never forget that conversation.  Shit had just gotten real.

I’ve driven by that store plenty after his passing, never going in, all the while wondering whether his cap was still inside, what someone had done with it, whether anyone had purchased that pilot’s cap, if they’d worn it out, for what occasion and if they’d laughed as hard as we had while trying it on.

I walked in finally, nearly two years later, not crying, a rarity for me.  The emotional barrage of the Father’s Day just passed had drained me of most of my tears.

I slowly, deliberately approached the nook where he’d found the hat.  Two years and a few more seconds wouldn’t hurt.  This is the kind of antique consignment store where it wouldn’t have surprised me one bit to see both caps sitting there right next to each other, untouched and unpurchased.  I kind of wanted that to be the case, although had that happened, they would have had to wheel me out of the store fit for a straitjacket. 

Part of me, heck, most of me knew there was no way his white cap could still be there two years later.  And someone would have certainly bought the fighter pilot cap by now.

It didn’t stop me from looking.

And looking again.

And walking around the store some more and looking yet again.

They were gone, the memories everlasting.

In another corner of the store, I found a brown leather, Kangol style hat, far more disco than military.  I tried it on and looked into the mirror, searching for any family resemblance.  It barely fit.  I thought about purchasing it as some sort of substitute, but it wouldn’t have been the same.

He wasn’t there.

I made it out of the store, the memory of that afternoon burning vividly and cheerfully.  He and I had eaten lunch right around the corner earlier that afternoon.  A Cuban sandwich he could barely finish.  By that time, his appetite had already started to wane.  What he craved was dessert at the ice cream store next door.  We made sure to get some of that too.

We sat there together in our rocking chairs right next to each other, just spending time, father and son, kicking the Willie Bobo as he used to say.

I keep waiting for his loss not to hurt as much despite knowing that will never happen.  The hats are gone but they are damn sure not forgotten.  There’s no way I don’t walk into that store another day soon and peer into that corner looking for it.  Regardless of the occasionally uncontrollable and unpredictable tears, this picture of him, and the memory of that afternoon, will always make me smile, hatless or not.

Happy Belated Father’s Day, Pops.  I miss you to pieces.