Evermore, Baltimore

I am in Baltimore. Looking at the Chesapeake Bay. Cold gray water. Brown grass.

Canada geese overhead, playing follow the leader, honking in sing-songy tones as if to say, “My butt is cold!” 

I have always wanted to see the Chesapeake. My whole life, actually. 

It all started because my dad was a reader. He read books obsessively. You’d see him sitting in his chair, poking through some thick volume. 

Usually he read boring books. Such as those outlining the various stratagems of the allied forces’ offensive maneuvers within the Pacific War Theater. Or the biography of the long and complicated history of dental floss in the United States. 

He read especially before bed. I’d peek into his room to say goodnight, and he’d have a book in hand, glasses low on his nose. He’d kiss my hair and say goodnight. Then just keep reading. 

He was a blue collar steelworker, but he tried so hard to defy this image by forcing himself to do non-blue-collar things.

Things like listening to classical music even though he hated it. Or writing down vocabulary words for himself, and trying to use these words in sentences. Words such as “loquacious,” or "munificence.”

The last book I remember him reading was “Chesapeake,” by James A. Michener. I believe my father had read all of Michener’s books. But he deemed “Chesapeake” his favorite. Not just his favorite Michener book, mind you, but his favorite book of all time. 

Years later when I was 13, I was going through a box of his things one night. Old baseball gloves. Old photos. And I found his favorite book. 

I just held it in my hands, clutching it close to my chest, as though this book had strange magic inside the pages. 

I tried to start reading it, but the language was too high-minded for a 13-year-old whose most advanced reading involved catching up on the exploits of Jimmy, Clark, and Lois down at the Daily Planet.

I got a few chapters into the book and I was deeply discouraged. I was a poor reader, I had no earthly idea what the book was even about. 

I had to start from the introduction again. This time I took it a few pages at a time. I forced myself to understand the words. I wanted to love this book. I NEEDED to understand the words on the pages because I wanted this book to be my favorite book too.   

And something happened. I fell into the story. I read the book all the way through. All 859 pages. I was so proud of myself. I felt like I’d grown four inches when I was finished. 

I’ve never felt closer to my dad. A man who loved a novel about an American body of water he never lived long enough to visit. 

And now I stand here, overlooking the Chesapeake Bay. I have never seen this water before today. I am the same age my father was when he took his own life. And for some reason, today I am grateful for the munificence of God.  

Sorry for being so loquacious today.