A Father's Day Fish Story

When Big Fish came out (2003), Nikki and I went to see it together. The movie touched me profoundly to the point where I was sobbing uncontrollably on the way back to the car.  No other movie has had quite the same affect on me before or since. What an odd movie to stick out among others and to grab me by the heart the way that it did.  I quickly realized it was because Albert Finney's story-telling character (Ed Bloom) reminded me of my dad. It made me realize that those stories that I had heard all my life would stop someday -- and two years later, in 2005, they did.

Do you ever find yourself rolling your eyes when a parent starts to tell you something that you've heard 100 times? It's strange how we can so easily dismiss those opportunities for connection as an annoyance because we've heard it before.  Now I strain to remember even one of dad's stories before they become too distant to grab hold of. 

Today is Father's Day and I've been thinking about my dad.  Today of all days, as I was flipping through the television channels, a scene immediately caught my attention and I stopped there. There was Albert Finney ... there was Big Fish. I just finished watching it and yes, it grabbed me by the heart again.  I miss his stories.  I miss my dad.

"A man tells his stories so many times that he becomes the stories. They live on after him, and in that way he becomes immortal."  -Will Bloom (Big Fish)