While looking through a stack of DVDs, I spotted a movie near the bottom, “Big Fish.” I can’t bring myself to watch it again because the main character is so reminiscent of my late father.
In the movie, Edward Bloom is a perpetual story teller who embellishes every facet of his life, from his exploits in high school to a daring war-time mission in Japan
After years of hearing these Herculean stories, Edward’s son grew to distrust everything his father said because he never knew what was fact and what was fiction. Will resented that quicksand.
I embraced it.
Many of my relatives could take an ordinary story and turn it into something magical.
My Grandmother Marguerite grew up in New Orleans
One night, a strange man got on the streetcar, and sat next to her. He politely said he noticed Marguerite had some blemishes on her face.
“I have a magical touch,” he told her, in slightly slurred speech. “If I touch your face, you’ll never have another blemish again.”
Marguerite was always ready for an adventure, so she closed her eyes and told him to go right ahead.
“And I never, ever had another blemish for the rest of my life,” she told me. The underlying lesson was to sometimes trust in things we can’t always see.
My Grandmother Albedia told stories filled with descriptive details, and I hung onto every detail. My mom said the stories weren’t true, but I didn’t care – she made the ordinary extraordinary.
It was the same with my father. I don’t think my dad ever told a story that wasn’t stretched or embellished.
According to my dad, he won hundreds of jitterbug contests, earning enough pocket change to go out on the town every weekend.
My friends’ fathers went on fishing trips. My dad and my uncle went on a midnight treasure hunt for Pirate Jean Lafitte’s buried treasure.
For years, my father swore he and my uncle were followed that night and spied on as they dug up all around a huge cypress tree.
The next morning, all the dirt within a 10-foot radius of that tree was dug up, and if there was treasure there, it was now gone.
I always thought my dad had made up that story. After he passed away, my uncle said every bit of that story was true.
Like Edward, my dad surrounded himself with strange and unusual people. There was the person who came to our house at midnight, the trunk full of pre-packaged meat.
If that wasn’t strange enough, my dad never knew if Darla or Darren was coming – the under-the-table meat broker was a cross dresser.
Looking at that DVD case, I realized we need story tellers and dreams. They’re reminders that our journeys can take unexpected turns at any moment if we choose to look at life through a prism that’s a little bit distorted.
Two weeks before my dad passed away, he said all we have at the end of our lives to keep us company are our memories.