The Sands of Time

The Sands of Time

Few snapshots from my father’s time in the Gulf exist, far as I know. The clandestine nature of his assignment aside, camera phones were still sci-fi, as were sites for sharing photos.

I was 14 when his stop-loss order hit home. Uncle Sam revoked my father's rapidly approaching retirement seconds after swarthy Super Mario sacked Kuwait. 3 days later, Master Sergeant Jorge Alejandro Z was Arabian Peninsula-bound.

Like most self-absorbed ephebes, I saw the world as my life story's soundstage, my loved ones as actors playing supporting parts. My dad’s deployment began as an engaging, albeit out-of-left-field, subplot, ‘til I started watching the nightly news on a nightly basis. 'Til a stranger approached my mother and I at the mall clutching a petition provocatively titled, "No Blood for Oil." 'Til the day my brother and I came to blows over INSERT INCONSEQUENTIAL TRIVIALITY HERE, and the toll my father's absence had taken on my mother’s mental health announced itself with the subtlety of a SWAT team serving a warrant. Only then did it dawn on me that my dad might not come back soon, might not come back the same, might not come back at all.

Aside from the foresaid sole photo, I hold a single dispatch from my dad’s tour of duty. I’ve resisted rereading it for 35 years. Only when new memories cease production will I reacquaint myself with that communique’s contents, traveling as far into the past as the talisman takes me.

Though I’ve scrivened the following sentiment more times than I can recall, I’ve never spoken it aloud, and I've certainly never shared it with its inspiration. It’s time to right that wrong, before my last chance has come and gone. Thank you for your service, Dad, as soldier, a father, and as so much more. As an engineer, you bettered the lives of countless strangers in developing nations the world over. As a patriarch, you've bettered the lives of many within your sphere of influence, a sphere stretching from North America's Southeast to South America's Northwest. I'll die whole if I make you half as proud as you've made me. Be it catching my first fish, or teaching me how to contour my stick figures into 3-D renderings, xxx. Be it my insatiable appetite for erudition, or the Swiss Army Knife I always carry in the cargo shorts I'm always wearing, the vestiges of your influence are as evident as they are abundant. Here's to making new memories, as many as we can with the time we have left.