jurassic park

My eyes flicker back and forth wildly. I can’t remember the last time I read with such voracity, stumbling over myself as my eyes attempt to read faster than my brain can keep up. Without tearing my gaze from the page, I grab my phone. My finger is poised over my dad’s number when I start with a shock. For a moment, I forgot that he wouldn’t pick up.

It’s been weeks since my father’s death and yet this realization is a new one. The night of June 30th I sat by his bedside, clutching the limp, cold hand of a man who would never wake up. I drove home a hollow shell of a person, having cried out all my tears hours before. But when I woke up the morning of the first, nothing had changed. I expected to wake up feeling fatherless. It was like waking up the morning of my birthday, having everyone crowd around, and ask how it felt to be one year older. I would answer, “the same as yesterday.”

Walking around my house, I didn’t expect to run into my dad around every corner because he hadn’t been home in months. His almost two-year-long battle with cancer meant most of that time was spent in a hospital. I didn’t even expect a call or text as the final few weeks of illness left my dad unable to use his phone. So, waking up the morning of the 1st I didn’t feel fatherless. I felt fine.

If anything had changed, it was the state of our kitchen. Almost every hour I made my way to our front door, receiving basket after basket of flowers and arrangements until our kitchen smelled like a greenhouse. Eventually, our local florist began turning down bouquets as they scrambled to replenish their stock.

With the flowers, we also inherited a whole host of cards. Hundreds of cards poured in, addressed to my mom, my family, and even my late father. For us kids, the messages came in the form of texts: paragraphs from long lost friends or classmates or even people I’d never met. I received an outpouring of support and I gave the same copy-and-pasted answer to everyone. When neighbors came over with dinners and groceries, I accepted their teary hugs dutifully.

The weeks passed by, my eyes still stubbornly dry, until one day I sat on the bike in our workout room, Jurassic Park propped up on the monitor. My dad was a lover of multi-tasking, although terrible at it in practice. He always answered his work emails, sitting on this very bike. “Two birds with one stone!” he would say. He was a lover of expressions as well.

So, I sat reading my book and one of my last conversations with my dad came to mind. My dad was one of the biggest science nerds on the planet and I followed closely in his image – much to the annoyance of the rest of the family. We spent every other weekend at the Museum of Science and Industry, reading Scientific American, and researching sci-fi movies for hours after exhausting every Top 100 list we could find. Our conversations usually resulted in the complete boredom of everyone around us as we discussed physics, philosophy, and everything in between. This particular conversation had been about the late, great Michael Crichton. My dad had grown up on his novels, eagerly awaiting every release, but I was a newcomer to his works. Sphere hooked me from the first page and The Andromeda Strain was no different. Still, I was wary of Jurassic Park. Generally, I make it a rule to read the book before I see the movie, but Jurassic Park has slipped through the cracks of my system. My dad and I had seen Jurassic Park years ago, long before I would have been old enough to read the novel. We were sci-fi nerds; of course we’d seen it.

So, I was giving my dad a hard time. I’d already seen the movie, I knew the plot, the characters, the whole story. What was the book going to give me that the movie didn’t? My dad was a brilliant man, but he wasn’t always brilliant with words. In lieu of an explanation he’d say, “You just have to read it. Trust me,” and I’d smile and talk about something else.

One week after my father’s death, our local library opened up. I walked in with a masked face and sanitized hands, being quietly monitored by the silent librarians. I wasn’t exactly sure why I had gone. My mind had never calmed in the past weeks enough to watch a movie, much less read a book. Still, the library had always been one of my favorite places and it was comforting to walk around one of my childhood haunts. My feet inadvertently carried me towards the science fiction novels. I ran my fingers over the familiar names... Asimov... Bradbury... Crichton... and there was Jurassic Park. Better late than never, I thought, another expression, and I checked it out. I grabbed two other books as well, as if someone would see Jurassic Park on its own and somehow know why I was taking it. But no one said a word as I made my way back to my car.

I read the other two books first and they were good, but unremarkable. My mind was firmly fixed on the book at the bottom of my pile. Even from a distance, I could recognize the familiar build of a Michael Crichton novel, always narrow and short, as though it’s a book you need to be able to take on the go.

When I finally gathered enough courage to open the book, I read the first page hesitantly. Soon though, my mind slipped into the familiar prose and I was hooked. My background changed like a movie montage as I went from kitchen to plane to car to the workout room, my eyes never once leaving the page. It’s only in the final few paragraphs, legs pumping in a lazy circle on the stationary bike, that I reach instinctually for my phone.

For the first time since my father’s death, I’ve forgotten. My finger still hovers above his name, ready to make a call. One by one, the long-dormant tears begin to fall, and I can’t help but smile. I cry with a crazy sort of grin on my face because in this moment I only want one thing, and it’s devastating to know I’ll never have it. I want to call my dad and tell him he was right about Jurassic Park. I love it.

Robin Hood

Just so you know