The Cardboard Shadow of My Father

One of the most personal things I've ever written was something I did last year called "The Cardboard Shadow of My Father". It was the story of my father losing his foot to diabetes shortly after one of the highlights of his life, being grand marshal of a parade.

I present it again unchanged.

It was created in my father's honor for one of the highlights of his life: the banquet in his honor for being the Grand Marshal of the Bucks County St. Patrick's Day Parade. When I first saw it, I laughed. I mean, who expects to see their father immortalized as a cardboard standee?

Oh, you know them, they're the standup cutouts that are more often seen at a gag photo booth at an amusement park or in a "Star Wars" geek's room. But my father isn't Darth Vader, he's just Dad.

We made sure we brought him back with us after the dinner was over and we put him by the door. It turns out that this was the worst place to put him because whenever we walked down the stairs and flipped on the lights, a smiling, oddly thinner and shorter version of my father would greet you silently. After one too many screams from my family members, he was moved to the space beside our china closet and right next to the kitchen table.

Meanwhile, my father was not doing so well. Everyone began becoming concerned about the color of his foot. I never saw it, but I was told that it was becoming black. This was, of course, not a good sign and he went to the podiatrist. Of course, the podiatrist was adamant that he immediately check himself into the hospital to have it examined.

He did.

He called me from the hospital to ask me to please call someone to tell them that he wasn't going to be able to meet up with them later on that day. I can't remember exactly who he wanted me to call, but I remember it really wasn't important. I remember mostly the sound of my father afraid.

I've never heard my father scared before. Well, maybe I have, but before...when he was afraid that I or one of my brothers might get hurt, it came out as anger and was shouted. Or when he was letting us know that he was disappointed in us, he'd yell.

His tone was completely different than that. One much more likely to come from a condemned man than my father. And yet, perhaps he felt like this might be it. He hates hospitals. I'm certain he sees them as cathedrals of death rather than as places where people go to become well.

Over the next day, the news wasn't good as his foot became blacker and blacker. There was talk amongst the doctors of my father losing his whole leg as opposed to just the foot. They were making an attempt to save it, though.

That night, after coming home from the hospital and after shutting off the TV to go to bed. I walked through the doorway and past the kitchen. My clumsy arm caught the edge of something as I walked by and I knocked it down.

I knocked down my father.

Sure, it wasn't the real thing-it was a six foot tall cardboard cutout, of course- but I knew this was in no way a good sign. I picked him up and put him back in his spot. Then I trudged up the stairs into my bed, troubled.

The picture that is represented in the cutout was taken on the day of the parade. The day my father insisted he walk the entire parade route unassisted in his dress shoes. He did. He paid a price for it. Too high a price. That was the day, we believe, his foot took a turn for the worse.

By the end of the week, he had lost most of his foot. He soon came home and he's now at the foot of the stairs. It's tough for him to walk, but from time to time he does...often walking past his bipedal doppelganger. But the lack of the foot isn't why they're different.

One is smiling. The other is not.