The Finishing Touch

Sometimes the people who shape us aren’t the ones who share our name

The older I get, it seems more of my few remaining memories of my father fade into obscurity. He removed himself from my life by the time I was 12. The handful of post-divorce years I had with him consisted of either weekend visits where I played with my neighborhood friends or hanging out with my aunt while I waited for him to get off work.

We didn’t spend any meaningful time together in those 12 years. No learning moments that I can recall; no sage, country boy advice passed along.

I mostly just remember he was a construction worker, wore dusty boots and busted jeans to work (that I thought were SO cool), and always said “rough,” when asked how his day went.

It’s funny that I remember him as being extremely handy, but I feel like this may just be a forced memory based on the fact that he worked construction. The only thing I ever remember seeing him build was a basketball goal at the end of our driveway.

Still, building, repairing, and constructing were all things I associated with him, and they therefore fell onto the list of things I swore to myself I’d never take an interest in when I became an adult. I wanted to be nothing at all like him if I could help it.

That list also included having a beard, owning a motorcycle, and proudly wearing tank tops in public. We see how well I did with those.

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These are all just things that I remember about him. I really have no idea what other interests or characteristics I’ve inherited from him and I don’t care to know.

Another one has begun to rear its ugly head as of late, however: taking an interest in building things. Not only that, but enjoying the process, even if it is sometimes frustrating and makes me use curse words that are new to the English language.

Like I said last week, I’ve been in the process of completely redoing our garage with the hopes of turning it into a woodworking shop. I have bizarre dreams of learning how to make custom frames and cutting boards in addition to a few projects around the house.

I asked for hardware store gift cards for my birthday and Christmas so I could put them all together to go toward some of the more expensive tools I’d need. But before I could buy those things, I had to finish the garage so I’d have a place to store them. That included trips to the dump and KARM, helping Katie move stuff she’s sold on Marketplace, patching holes, painting walls, building shelves, and designing a custom workbench.

Once all that was complete, I could start knocking items off my wish list.

As of my most recent writing, I’d made several trips to the dump and to KARM, patched the holes, and painted.

Construction day finally came over this past weekend. Katie was out of town visiting her mom, so I loaded the truck up with lumber and spent an entire day cutting wood and drilling pocket holes. By the time the sun went down on Saturday, I’d worked all day but hadn’t built a single thing.

I sat in my living room that night, watching some videos on YouTube to see what I was doing wrong with my pocket holes when I asked myself a question. The answer pissed me off:

I wish I was close to someone who could answer these questions for me instead of having to watch YouTube to learn it. You know who would probably know?

I officially began constructing the shelves on Sunday morning. And as I attached boards to studs, measured out support intervals, and repeatedly checked for level and plumb, I couldn’t stop thinking about how even now, 30 years since I last spoke to the man, I was mad as hell at my absent father.

Why wasn’t he here helping me with this?

A man who could be helpful, who I could learn from, is both unable and unwilling to do either.

It’s unfair that a truly great man who helped and taught me so much more in life, who would be here helping me in a heartbeat, is now just waiting on me in the Hall.

My Paps wasn’t a construction worker and while he wasn’t classically trained or educated in any meaningful way, he was a well-qualified handyman. I helped him install ceilings, construct closets, level sidewalks, build walls, install stoves, wire lights, and so much more.

I maybe didn’t retain much of the handyman knowledge he bestowed upon me, but the lesson that did stick is really the only one that mattered:

If you don’t know how to do something, figure it out.

He was on my mind each time I installed a new light fixture in this house. He’s stood behind me every time I’ve fixed a minor plumbing issue. When I clean my grills every spring, when I load the truck down with lumber, when I go to Home Depot for the fourth time in a day, he’s right there the whole time reminding me over and over again to just figure it out.

I thought about all of this as I stood inside my half-finished shelf. Once I stopped focusing on being angry at a masculine failure and began feeling gratitude for one of my life’s true heroes – who would undoubtedly be proud of me – everything changed.

The rest of the day went by like a breeze. No warped boards, no split wood, no broken screws, no lost drill bits.

By dusk, I had finished my shelves, arranged the contents of my garage on them, and built my work bench, complete with peg board, overhead lighting and a stool.

I sat on that stool and watched the sun go down as I noshed on a chimichanga I’d DoorDashed for dinner. It took me back to all the quiet, cool evenings sitting in the driveway with Paps after a long day’s work.

He’d been with me that whole time, but he was especially with me at that moment.

As I finished my last bite of deep-fried tortilla, I spun around to gaze upon my finished product and realized I was missing something very important – the finishing touch, if you will.

There. That’ll do it.

A permanent reminder that no matter if it’s a difficult project or a foul turn in life, we figure it out.

-jtf