When I was a teenager, My dad had one of those illegal satellite cards that allowed us to watch all the pay channels for free on his DirecTV and so I'll never forget how I secretly cracked his 4 digit security code on the remote (2580)(right down the middle) which allowed me and my brother to sneak watch all the adult film channels.
Love - is like this thing that's not exclusive or limited - in this moment it feels as simple as a support aide to another person as we support aide our own selves while on our independent yet intertwined journeys - that get a little less lonely because of these support aides who present us with their versions of love.
It doesn't have to be forever. It doesn't have to be physical. It could be a thought, a moment, a series of seemingly mundane interactions that add up to care and profundity.
I loved my dad in that sense. He was a criminal for having that satellite card. I was a juvenile offender for covertly hacking his passcode (2580)(right down the middle of the remote). And it's been three years since he passed on, and I have this joke that it's been hard growing up without a father.
I had one. He was here then gone, a few times in my life, no one's fault. Just people being people throwing one another off course in the names of love (sometimes support aides clash) and how the grief morphs. I can't even say I dwell on him every single day now, which makes it all the more jarring when he does reappear.
I often tell the story of how I left the front door open when I barged in to see him on his last day alive (in a heroic two year fight against pancreatic cancer) (After a heroic 70+ year fight of being a human and all that it entails) and how minutes after he died a hummingbird flew into the house. And how when I am golfing with my brother (at cheap courses with Goodwill clubs) or walking around the Echo Park lake with my sister we will see hummingbirds together. How one morning I woke up in tears needing to know he was here and an hour later my brother spotted one at the breakfast place we were at together.
I see him every day as my smile turns more into his own. What a guy. What a guy. Oh the secrets we had from one another that we would have laughed at, boy did we have a lot of laughs together for a few years together, those ones where we had finally found one another, as support aides, in every way, including the forever kind of love kind of way.
