2010.11.13 Oh, hey Dad

It was finally time to shave off the two weeks of itchy beard today. The stitches from the surgery to remove the tumor from my jaw were taken out this past Monday, but I was advised to avoid shaving for about another week. Something to do with not wanting to nick the still-delicate scar tissue. It was short of the recommended week, but the combined healing/beard itch was intolerable. So I fitted a new stainless steel blade in my retro safety razor and started gingerly scraping off the beard.

Shaving has become something of a mindless ritual in the past couple decades, so despite my anxiety over what I'd find lurking under my whiskers I still ended up having my mind wander a bit. Nothing important or specific - money, work, chores, dates. I suppose I'm a bit of a cliché problem-seeking/solving sort. I come by it honestly.

Shaking off the distractions I cleaned up my cheeks and throat and jaw, and saw that the scar looked pretty OK. Not as well-aligned with my jaw line as I would have liked. And with some distracting textural bits at the ends where the flesh is puckered slightly. Best of all, it really does look like someone tried to stab me in the throat.

I'm hoping this paints a picture of the weird mix of concern and amusement and subliminal worries and distractions going through my head at that moment. Because it was right then that I saw my dad looking out of the mirror at me.

Not just a "I look a lot like my dad" kind of moment, here. It's even more than what I'd expect if I were trying to look like my dad from when I was about 10 years old and he had that shapeless mustache. It was the gestalt of the mix of emotions on my face that made it such an evocative memory of Dad. I can only guess at the array of worries and jests that regularly inhabited my dad's head when I was a little kid. But whatever they were, they made him look almost exactly how I look after a mild cancer scare, some stupid material worries, and being fundamentally happy.

We had us a chat.