How Do You Follow A Legacy?

 

How do you follow a legacy?
Maybe I should ask my father's father...
Next time I see him,
To understand the things that matter...
The elements of life and limb,
The moment we make friends
Or separate from kin.
I wonder what our elders would say,
Seeing our day to day,
Our ways and means...
Could they understand our theme?
Our modus, the scripts we follow...
But I digress.
Yet let me stress.
These words are a celebration
Not a query or question...
Not hearsay but reflection
On instances and spaces
Between two faces, two people,
Two men...
Let's begin!
We haven't always seen eye to eye.
We often stood toe to toe...
Respectfully, most of the time...
At times our minds align
By the design...
But could also go awry,
Crossing lines
Drawn in the sand
Especially when I, as a boy, felt as a man...
Attempting to show my hand,
My full house, the tight end, so to speak.
But many times over, my situation
Became bleak
Dire even...
The ruler had sired me then.
Showing me who was king...
Head of the table...
Demonstrating how able he was,
Still capable of me putting his paw down...
"You may be taller, stronger, better looking
But you would never be as ignorant as me."
I think back and those moments
Are shrouded in the heat,
The anger,
The point to be proven...
But the lessons always took root
Deep inside,
When you realise the lineage and
How it fills you with pride
The pride of being a man ..
Understanding why your father
Is your father,
Why his discipline and perception
Is what it is. Conviction!
What it is at his core,
But there's more.
Witnessed tears cascade down his face once ever in life...
But it wasn't at the passing of his wife
She's still here, strong and resilient...
Not at the going home of his mum or dad.
Even when his sister by marriage
Shocked us all...
And her partner dropped the mic,
SHR stayed in his zone...
And to each his own.
That's Stewart.
However, in theme
with the aforementioned scraps
And scrapes,
The head to heads we had
As father and son
A moment would come...
A day when it broke after so much bending
A confrontation,
Seemingly unending
Contending for the last undisputed spot,
Needless to say it hot.
Fiery...
But in retrospect, necessary.
How you ask...
Because when we remove our masks
And understood the task at hand
It's when I truly became a man
And my dad showed me the plan.
By right I should've been out the house
Residing elsewhere...
My without-a-care, laissez-faire approach
Met with a wall
A stall, may-day may-day...
That was it.
I felt.
No more home to come back to...
This is it... like MJs last show.
Would I go out like him?
Who knows...
But, yes a but...
Even after the blow up that ensued,
And a walk up to the airport
Searching my mind for clues
As to why... who dis man think he is??
Well I'm about to tell you...
Upon my return...
The sun had gone down.
The heat that flared like a summer day
Had eased to a cool breeze...
Indicative of the head space needed
To rectify and feel...
What was necessary to set things right. What a night was ahead.
I entered and sauntered
To the bedroom where he sat...
Awaiting my sentence,
Stewart now wearing the judge's hat
But amazingly...
As he turned and listened
My apology laid out in front of him
Instead of castigating,
He opened up, revealing
My son... he said...
It is I who have done wrong
The lyrics to this song
Would stay with me so long
The situation escalated...
Should never have been
Furthermore what should have ended,
We didn't have to begin
But let me say this...
I always hold you and your sister
In highest regard
The last thing I'd want, is to hurt
Or discard
The love I have for you...
Runs deep and true...
The most important things in my life...
Are her and you.
No balling, or bellowing,
But a simple quiet tear
Showed me his character...
In this moment we shared.
The man I knew, always stoic,
Clever and sarcastic
Was an open book,
Pages filled with love
I couldn't deny it.
We embraced and refreshed,
This moment was unique.
Unequivocally important...
To how we now speak
And relate, the challenges still exist,
But never cutting ties
As we know we'd both miss...
The conversations, the understanding,
Between man and son,
Man and father,
And we continue through life
To gather and learn,
Meander through turns
I maintain...
How do you follow legacy?
You seek to understand the paths
The ones before have charted.
The journey they started
And what they pass on...
As they live on through us
It is a must...
That we remember and cherish
Our fathers.

Love and respect always to
Stewart Henderson Russell...
There are many ways to be a good father
And I likely have made you figure out all of them but I want to say thank you for all you've done and continue to do for me and Lynelle. We are farther today, on Fathers' day thanks to you!

 

Michael Russell © June 18, 2023