I've been sitting here at home on this Sunday afternoon watching Big Fish, which we got from Netflix over a week ago.  For whatever reason, Heather and I hadn't gotten around to watching it until today.  Of course, she actually saw the movie while I was locked up, and like so many other films I am simply trying to catch up.  Being Sunday, Heather dozed off early into the film and then retired to the bedroom for a nap.  That left me here with Tigger sleeping next to me, as I watched the rest of the movie and sat here crying like a baby and the tears mixing with my aftershave, creating burning little rivers down my cheeks.  Now they itch - I hate that.  And I need to blow my nose badly or spend the rest of the day breathing through my mouth.

As movies go this one wasn't so much spectacular - unlike most of Tim Burton's films, it has a quieter touch.  Sort of like one of the Cohen Brothers movies.  I remember seeing something in a magazine about it and wanting to see it when I cam home.  Ewan McGregor, who along with Albert Finney stars in the film, has been a favorite of mine ever since his debut in Shallow Grave.

The movie is basically about how Albert Finney is dying, and his adult son is trying to reconcile the tall tales his father told about his life with whatever the truth might be.  It didn't grab me at first, but the further along the story got, and the sicker his father became, the more it made me think of Dad.  And how much I miss him.  And how I never got much of a chance to say goodbye.

It's hard to see the computer screen with blurry eyes, you know, so maybe you'll forgive any typos.

In prison the whole process of phone calls is controlled, to the point of outright silliness.  You need to submit forms with any phone number you want to be able to call, which can take weeks to approve.  Then there are only certain times you can actually use the phone - never during the daytime if you have a "job" the way I did.  They're also off-limits after 11pm or so, and during count times.  When you want to make a call, you get on line and wait your turn.  Calls are limited to 15 minutes maximum, and you need to wait an hour between the end of one phone call and the beginning of the next.  You are also limited to 300 minutes total phone time each month.  Not to mention that they cost 23 cents a minute (unless you call collect, in which case they are much more expensive). 

Anyway, I used to call home and talk to Dad and Barbara when I could, once or twice a month, just to let them know how I was doing.  In the beginning Dad was always trying to be upbeat, his normal self...but it didn't take very many months before I could hear such terrible defeat in his voice.  It sounded like life had completely worn him out, and the mere act of being alive was a burden for him...it was hard, painful, unhappy and tedious work - not unlike some of the more unpleasant tasks I had to perform in prison.  But in his case, there was no release - just the promise of continued unhappiness until it was all over.  Being an atheist (or so he told me), Dad was left with the choice between unhappiness and nonexistence.  I like to think that he found strength in the love he felt for, and got from, Barbara and his children.

Like me, the last thing he wanted to be was a burden or bother to the people he loved.  I had become just that when I went to prison - and now trapped in the prison of his body, Dad was suffering a similar but more tortuous fate.

In the end, what with moving from one bed to another, rehab facility to hospital to nursing home and back to the hospital, I don't think I was able to speak to him for a long time before he finally died.  I'd send cards and such - I even think I remember sending a long letter for Allison or Barbara to read to him personally, but I don't know if they ever did or if he said anything back.  Like so much else, I missed my chance to say goodbye either in person or on the phone.  I just hope he wasn't too worried about me.

I remember the first time he came to visit me.  It was my first visit from anybody, and I wasn't sure how it worked.  They paged me to the visiting room, and after I was searched and allowed in there was Barbara...but no Dad.  Apparently somehow my warnings about not being allowed to wear shorts were overlooked, and they hadn't been able to let him in.  Instead he drove to a nearby Wal Mart or K-Mart to buy a pair of long pants.  Fortunately he didn't buy khaki-colored ones; at that facility the inmates wore khaki, and he once again would have been denied entry.

When he finally returned, he tried to come inside carrying a framed photograph of all six Kent children.  Barbara went outside to stop him, and to explain that he couldn't being it in.  All I can remember is the look of dismay on his face, and the tears rolling down his cheeks...just like the ones I am experiencing now.  He wanted to comfort me, to do what he could to help me get through my depression and unhappiness...but he felt helpless, and confused, and he was close to breaking down physically as well as mentally. 

We got through the visit, and I think it was more important for him than it was for me at the time.  He could see things weren't terrible...I wasn't facing constant danger, or living in squalor.  Things could be a lot better in prison, but they also sure as hell could be a lot worse.  The simple advice he gave me served me pretty well.   "Behave yourself."  I met a lot of interesting people, and some of them really very decent and helpful.  Lots of scumbags too, but you meet them everywhere in life.

When Dad finally died, I guess I knew it before anybody told me.  Barbara had tried to keep the details from me, waiting until a few weeks later to tell me of each stroke or hospitalization.  But one morning I was sitting in my cubicle and a fellow inmate came and told me "Hey dude, they just paged you to the front office."  And I knew, all of a sudden I knew.  I walked down that long hallway to the office and as I neared it, Mr. Roche stuck his head out to look down the hall, saw me, and waited.  I came into the office and he asked "So, how are you doing?"  Nobody in the front office, nice guy or not, is going to ask that to an inmate.  So I let him off the hook - I looked at him and said "My father died, didn't he?"

In probably my lowest moment in prison, I had to make the call to Barbara to get the news officially on a speaker phone, with Mr. Roche and another prison official in the office listening to the whole conversation.  Something to do with new Federal security regulations, after a scandal involving a lawyer smuggling messages from an inmate to his terrorist friends, I'm not sure.  So as an added bonus to my sentence, I got to talk to Barbara about my father and how he died, while I cried and coughed and felt like I was numb and being stabbed in the chest and stomach all at the same time...all the while with two prison officials sitting nearby, looking at the wall and wishing they could be somewhere else.

I got off track in this entry somewhere.  I think my point was supposed to be that Big Fish reminded me how much I miss Dad, and that I still haven't really mourned him yet.  I'll miss him even more when I get married and he can't be there...but at least I know he got to meet Heather, and he was able to see how sweet and wonderful and caring she is, and how happy she makes me.  So if nothing else, maybe that helped him worry a tiny bit less about me.  I hope so anyway.  So many people I did time with saw the women they loved fade away while they were apart.  Somehow I wound up with a woman who was willing to trade so many months of loneliness for the promise of spending the rest of our lives together.  I hope it was worth it for her! 

This has to be the most unfocused blog entry in history!  If I was writing this in Word, I;d probably just delete the whole thing.  But instead, I'll post it to the web, and even if nobody reads it and nobody cares, it will live on the way Dad and his stories and his goofy jokes and songs live on for me...the same way Albert Finney in Big Fish lived on...