I went by my dad’s grave this morning. It’s been a while since I’ve paid respects. Our family accountant’s new office is conveniently located about 200 yards from the headstone, and it being tax time I was in the vicinity. I used to go with my mom pretty often, but since she is not able to go anymore it has very much fallen of my radar.

Going there always puts me in this middle-aged state of introspective semi-sadness/semi-peace existential brain-fog. My dad was a good man. When you look beyond my dad’s good-natured clowning, he was always the telling the people he loved that he believed in them and supported them. In his jobs as a coach, teacher, and administrator, he was always trying to lift students and colleagues up.That is the message I hear over and over.

A few months before my dad died, he and my mom were at our house for dinner. He knew I’d recently gotten a new downhill board. He asked to see it. It was the first time he’d ever expressed any interest in my skating. He was in the middle of his cancer treatment. He had to have known he would not be around much longer. I wonder if the reality of his situation gave him some kind of clarity with regard to me and my skating that he hadn’t had before? He was always interested in our lives. A massive supporter of both me and my wife. I feel like he must have been thinking about me quite a lot, and really reflected on what skateboarding meant to me. Anyway, that simple request to see that new board struck a chord with me. I’ll never forget it.

So when  go to Paderborn, Germany for the freestyle contest this year my dad will be on my mind. I don’t care if I win or place. I want to do the run that best expresses the way I normally skate, not something a bit more formualted to get points. I want my runs to be such that if my dad were there watching he’d better understand me.