The Soundtrack of My Life

"Muskrat Love"

APRIL 2007

One of the best things about being at Dad's house was that he had an awesome record player in the living room.  We spent our nights eating dinner and listening to whatever record was pulled out of the stack. Recently we had been listening to a lot of Captain & Tennille since it had a cute little song about two muskrats in love. The collection of records was small since it was something new that Dad was trying out.  He had gotten his record stereo and the records from an estate sale or two a couple weeks back, and it was now an important part of our family time.  We'd always have a puzzle on the card table we were working on, or we had games that we really liked to play together.  We'd also host soft dance parties where we would all get up and dance; not too crazily though because we didn't want the record to skip.  

Our next soft dance party was scheduled for this evening, but until then, Irene and I had been upstairs playing some Guitar Hero on my Playstation2 in our lofted bedroom upstairs.  When we came down for a snack, we noticed Dad was sitting at the head of the table, his head in his hands.  His shoulders were shaking, and he was wearing the same t-shirt he had on from yesterday. 

"Dad?" I called.  "Are you okay?"

He started to sob.  

"Dad!" I shouted as I ran to him.  Irene followed suit.  We wrapped our arms around him; me at his left, Irene to his right.  "What's wrong?"

Irene and I stood there, holding him as he cried.  This was extremely odd.  Sure, we had seen Dad cry on occasion, but never like this.  He was always the strong one; the guy that held our family together. It was so hard to see him break down, especially since we had no idea something was bothering him.  What could possibly have him this upset? 

He kept his balding head in his hands, not wanting to look us in the eyes.   We hugged him tightly, and I rubbed his back as he continued to cry.  He sniffled and I whispered to Irene for her to get him some tissues.  She came back with a roll of one-ply toilet paper, and placed it next to him.

Dad sighed and finally lifted his head.  "I'm sorry, girls.  I didn't want you to see me like this."

"What's going on?" Irene asked.  

He sighed once more.  He tried once, then twice to say something, but the words would get caught in his throat.  We sat there for a little while longer before he calmed down enough to speak.  "Money is just going to be really tight around here for a while."

"How come?" I asked.  

"Well," he hesitated.  "I lost my job yesterday."

"Why?" Irene questioned.

I knew why.  Dad was open about being gay; he spent way too many years in the closet being someone he wasn't, so being proud of who he actually is was important to him.  That was one of his life lessons he wanted us to walk away with: to always be true to ourselves.  His boss, Delilah, didn't approve of his "life style," so she had been eagerly scouring his work ethic for a reason to get him fired.  I guess she found something that could justify her wrongful distaste for his personal life.  

"Sometimes that just happens, Sweetie," Dad said to Irene as he pushed her curly brown hair back from her face.  "And there's nothing we can do about it."

"I know what would help!" Irene said happily.  She ran to the record player and fiddled with the knobs.  Captain & Tennille slowly seeped through the speakers as she turned up the volume.  She started dancing and I got up to join her.  

"Come on, Dad!" we both called.  

Dad smiled, and stood up.  He danced awkwardly toward us just as "Muskrat Love" began to play.  Laughter rose up and we started dancing away all of our sadness.  In that moment, I knew that everything was going to be alright for him.  He had both his daughters to back him up, no matter what.