The begining after the end

My father's hard hat

One of the main things that comes to my mind when I think of my father is his hard hat. He showed it to me when I was at an early age: it was a pure white dome-shaped object made of a material as hard as a rock, with the logo of the company he used to work in at the front; it also included two additional components, one of them was a small flashlight, and some sound-proof earmuffs. It looked like an alien artifact with those things on, it also seemed uncomfortable to wear something with so many things on your head. My father would take it to work and back home everyday, it would usually be stored at the top of his closet, he would not leave it anywhere else because my mother did not like having that around, in her words "It did not look good in the house". I sometimes would find it and use it for my child games; he knew about what I was doing, but it didn't bothered him. He is a really prepared and collected man, he would never rush straight into something; instead he would plan everything through with caution and get all of the things he could need to finish the task, barely any detail would escape his sharp mind. He used to work at a Thermal Power Plant, in such a place everything had to operate perfectly, all the security rules had to be followed without hesitation; there is little space for errors cause any mistake would have huge consequences. Those were the motives his hat would have those additions: the lamp and the earmuffs; they really came in handy when working overnight or finding himself at an area with harmful noise. That man can be so practical and yet that hard hat did not have any use outside his job, it could become a nuisance at times; maybe another good reason to keep it in the closet. He can show some big dedication, and that's an ideal quality to have when you do something as important as generating electricity for nearby areas; I remember that I saw something in his eyes once when I got curious about his job and asked him how electricity was produced, maybe it was just that general excitement that a parent has when having a casual chat with his son or even that thinking about the fruits of his hard work gave him a feeling of accomplishment and success. That hard hat represents many of the things I relate with my father, most importantly: safety, endurance and preparation.