for
+Willie Mack Riche+
a prologue included for father’s day:
the man who bought my kindergarten clothes when i was still yet four years old and paid my Lutheran school monthly tuition for eight years; the man who had the rusty 1972 VW Bug, gifted to me by my boyfriend for a high school graduation gift restored over the summer before my freshman year of college; the man who adored both my son aka “monster” and “bam-bam”, and my first dog, Digby aka “hound”; the man who endured both the devastating loss of custody, and subsequent parental abduction of — and then, the tragic accidental death of his only biological child,
a son.
the man who never got the chance to properly retire and healthfully and happily collect his 30-year, hard-earned Teamster’s union pension — and just go fishing all day because he became acutely ill with undiagnosed high blood pressure and kidney failure, and spent the last years of his life on thrice-weekly, hours-long dialysis treatment — and his last six months on Earth dying from a rare, aggressive and metastatic cancer.
may his spirit know peace eternally.
gingerly cradling his namesake Mack
on the first full day of the baby’s life,
and who we brought home on
Father’s Day, 1994
“This used to be my playground.”
and, our proxy for church on spring, summer and fall sabbaths.
These were the halcyon days.
Load up the International Harvester TravelAll with wooden door and quarter panels – it has two gas tanks, you know.
Bought it used, but clean, pristine
on payments – from the showroom on Logan Boulevard and Elston Avenue with zero credit history and all the
usury
Have mercy.
Follow me, and I will make you fishers of fish.
He will bait your hook on the bamboo pole he bought for you.
Later, you will insist on the “Pocket Fisherman” – as seen on TV.
