September

It’s the first of September.

We’re inching closer to fall; my favorite season of the year, even though I was born in the spring.

I live in a subtropical climate, so the changes are subtle. The palms stay, the trees don’t turn a myriad of beautiful fall colors like they do farther north. But still, the green shifts. The vibrant greens of spring and summer soften into a more subdued shade, a muted type of green, one that carries a little bit of melancholy.

Fall is a season of mixed emotions for me. Some of the most beautiful things in my life have happened in the fall: I got married in the fall. My oldest child was born in the fall. But fall also carries heaviness for me. My father’s birthday is today, September 1st. He passed away on November 11th, years ago.

My father was… complicated. To say the least, he wasn’t the most honest man. In fact, much of what I know about him I learned later in life, piecing things together through genealogy research, because his own story was riddled with omissions and half-truths.

It turns out he had three families, overlapping ones, and the family I grew up in was the last. Before us, there were others, children I didn’t know about for many years. Seven of them, in fact.

When all was said and done, I was the tenth child, and the youngest.

And yet, I grew up as an only child.

My mother had her own life, her own complications, and I was raised in a household that was as unique as it was challenging. My father and I had our ups and downs. For most of my adult life, we were estranged. Toward the end, it was him who cut communication, not me, something I wasn’t used to.

He had been accused of something serious, something that I believe he did, even if he avoided prison because of a technicality. It was the final straw in a life full of questionable choices, and he carried a deep shame because of it.

So my feelings about him are complicated. He wasn’t an easy man to love, and he left a trail of hurt behind him. And yet, he was still my father. In his own way, I know he loved me.

So today, on his birthday, I find myself sitting with all of that, the beauty and the heartbreak, the fall-colored green and the fading summer light, the fact that sometimes people are both things at once.

Happy birthday, Clay.