One Last Time

Now, as an adult, I hear it differently.

Photo by Leonie Zettl on Unsplash

“Daddy, let’s listen to your music this time,” I said as I watched my father select the Taylor Swift playlist as he did for me every morning. “Tell me about how music used to be better when you were a kid.”

“Very funny,” he said, as Opalite began to play.

My father hated Taylor Swift. I could tell. But he never let on. He always played it for me on the ride to school.

“I mean it, Dad,” I insisted. “Play some of your music and tell me about it.”

My father always got so passionate when he talked about his favorite music. His eyes lit up. His voice lifted. He seemed so alive. But I had always ignored him when he went on and on about how music used to be so much “better”.

“Seriously? What’s gotten into you?” He laughed. “My teenage daughter wants to listen to my music? You feeling ok?”

Regardless, his hands moved across the car’s stereo controls quickly, as if he didn’t want to give me a chance to change my mind.

“Ok, you asked for it,” he said, selecting the Pink Floyd playlist.

I noticed the way he settled into the seat and turned the steering wheel with one hand. It was like a long lost confidence had once again returned to his driving.

“Ahh this is a great song!” he announced, pointing to the screen. “You know, for so long I had always assumed these lyrics were about drug addiction,” he said. “I mean, that’s what it sounds like, anyway. It wasn’t until I was older that I started to hear it differently. And it took on a deeper meaning for me. Just listen to this part.”

He turned it up a bit louder.

When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse
out of the corner of my eye.
I turned to look and it was gone.
I cannot put my finger on it now.
The child is grown.
The dream is gone.
I have become comfortably numb.

His voice seemed to quiver now as he spoke. “I always thought it was the drugs that made him feel comfortably numb,” he said. “But now, as an adult, I hear it differently. It’s like when he was a child he had all these dreams of what his life could be. But he only caught a fleeting glimpse of them. Before he knew it, he got sucked into the demands of life and it forced him to give up on his dreams. Now the dream is gone and, to carry on, he just blocks it all out. Ignores it. Tries to forget he ever had those dreams. Over time, he’s allowed himself to become numb to that pain.”

I listened to the passion in his voice as he spoke. I heard his emotion. I could tell it felt real to him. He seemed to relate to it personally.

He and I remained silent for a moment as the music played on. The lyrics, and my father’s words, began to really sink in.

For the first time in my whole life I wondered if my father once had dreams of his own. I had never bothered to think of him as his own person before. He was always just Dad. Did he once have dreams? Had life forced him to give them up?

Was my dad comfortably numb?

It seemed like a question too deep for my 13-year-old mind to consider. But here I was, experiencing it somehow.

“And listen to that guitar solo!” he went on. “That’s David Gilmour. You won’t hear a guitar solo like that on any Taylor Swift song, I’ll tell you that much.”

I sat there, staring out the window as we drove, listening to my father’s music. The music I had always ignored before. It sounded more interesting now though, knowing how much it meant to him. And knowing how much he had always wanted to share it with me. I couldn’t explain it but now, somehow, it seemed like I was listening with different ears.

My dad continued to drum on the steering wheel as we pulled up to the school. We passed the line of parked school buses and turned into the circle in front of the door. He stopped and turned the music down.

“Here we are,” he said. “Thanks for listening to my music for a change. Have a good day at school.”

I paused before opening the car door. I watched my friends, their backpacks on their shoulders, gathering in front of the building as they did every morning before the bell rang.

“Will you walk me to the door?” I asked.

“Walk you to the door?” He sounded shocked. “Of your school? Now I’m really worried about you. Won’t your friends think you’re cringe or whatever the kids say these days?”

“I don’t care. You’re my dad. I love you.”

I saw my dad’s eyes misting up, like I had made his day.

“I don’t know where all this is coming from, but I’m not going to pass it up,” he said as he opened the car door and walked around to my side.

He walked me to the school’s entrance, holding my hand, with his head high like he was escorting a princess to a ball. I smiled while my friends watched me, even though I usually would have been embarrassed.

When we got to the door, he hugged me. I held on a bit longer than usual.

“Dad,” I said. “Did you have a dream that life forced you to give up?”

“Oh, you know,” he said with a smile that looked like he was reliving a fond memory. “The typical dream, I guess. I wanted to play music and tour the world with my band. I wanted to play for thousands of screaming fans every night.”

“What happened?”

“I guess you could say a fleeting glimpse of it out of the corner of my eye was enough for me.” He tapped me on the nose. “The band broke up. We went our separate ways. And that was that.”

“Why don’t you do it now? You’re never too old, right?”

He looked up for a moment as if in thought. “I guess it would be fun to get the band back together,” he said. “You know, maybe one last time.”

He looked back at me. “But honestly, that was a dream I once thought I wanted,” he said. “That was before I discovered what I really wanted. I have more important priorities now. Now, my dream is for all of your dreams to come true.”

“Thanks, Dad.” I smiled again, let go of his hand, and went to class.

But that’s when something weird happened. I felt a strange sensation come over me. My vision got blurry, like my eyes were fogging up. Was I passing out?

I was almost at my desk. Maybe I just needed to sit down.

But, just as I was about to sit, I heard a strange voice. “Time’s up.”

That’s when everything went dark. I was no longer in the classroom. I opened my eyes and found myself in a strange room. A lab maybe? Or a doctor’s office? I wasn’t sure.

My memory slowly came back to me. I was not a teenager. I was a grown woman, 43 years old.

Suddenly I remembered everything. The reality hit me like a ton of bricks and the memories of my childhood faded into the distance. I was back again in the present time: the year 2056.

I had been visiting the past.

“It’s over?” I asked. “So soon?”

A man in a lab coat greeted me. “Yes, that’s as long as it lasts. Any longer could be dangerous,” he said. “I hope it was a good experience.”

It had worked. I had been a bit skeptical, to be honest. The ad had said I could pick any day to go back to and revisit one last time. Time displacement it was called. Or something like that, anyway.

The funeral was last week, and there was so much I wanted to revisit. So much I wish I could have said to him. But I could only pick one day.

I picked a day from my teen years. It was a day I remembered he had tried to tell me about the music he loved. I had ignored him then. His music always sounded so old and boring to me. But now, as an adult, I hear it differently.

On my way home from the Time Displacement Lab, I turned the car stereo to the Pink Floyd station so I could remember that moment with my father one last time.