It had been a couple of weeks since I talked to my dad. He had called a few times and got my voicemail. I had tried to call him back and he was at work or dealing with other things. My mom sent me a text message, asking that I call home since my dad was there. The first thing he said was, ‘Well hello, stranger! Feels like I haven’t talked to my boy in weeks’. He hadn’t.

It was interesting to hear what I could only describe as enthusiasm and excitement in my father to hear from me. I guess this might sound surprising in and of itself, but my father has never really been one to be too expressive with his emotions. He’d say that he loves my sister and me, and I know he does. It’s just not something we’ve ever really ‘gotten into’.

So, in that, it was really surprising to hear that he had, in essence, missed me. It makes me think about how we’re all getting older. My dad was talking to me about what he thinks what cars will be running on in 30 years, and how electric cars are going to be the way of the future and he said something along the lines of, ‘I mean in 30 years I won’t be alive to see it’. And I’ve never really heard my dad talk about himself like that, like he’d be gone someday. He’s 60 now. 60.

I think I’ve always had this sense of eternal youth in terms of how I looked at my parents. They were the grown-ups that cared for me growing up. It doesn’t register, at least not to me, that they’re getting older until it’s been a while since you’ve seen them and there’s more gray hair and there’s more signs of aging. We’re not always going to be here forever.

Sometimes I will catch myself sounding exactly like my dad in terms of inflection. We have very similar styles of humor and comedy. My own is based heavily on his. We’d riff about bad movies on Friday nights and watch action movies together. It was a real bonding thing for us, and he said he hadn’t watched some movie whose name I can’t remember because ‘he didn’t have his boy there to watch it with him’. That struck a chord.

He said he came across some old college tests I took, and noted that I scored in some top percentile. He said he was a proud papa. That he knew I was always smart.

It was interesting.

I wonder what my dad’s going through lately. What he’s feeling. I wonder if recent events has him thinking about how many times he’ll have to see his children, and how many good years he has to live life and get some form of enjoyment out of it. It made me think that my mom and dad are not just my mom and dad. They are people with feelings, hopes, ambitions, and everything else. There was a time where I didn’t exist, and they only had themselves to live for. How has their perception of life changed over the years of watching me and my sister grow into people.

I should call my dad more often.