Elvis and my Dad

Not the Elvis you're thinking of, but Elvis Fontenot and the Sugarbees. They're a UK band that plays Zydeco. Yes, you heard right. I saw them at the French Quarter Festival in 2003. Anyway, I fell in love with their songs and got a free CD after their performance, thanks to my cute little Emma who walked up to get it with me and looked at them with her blue saucer eyes. Anyway, we listened to that CD the whole way back from New Orleans and by the time we got back home, knew the words to most of the songs. Not hard to learn for this particular CD.

A short time after, my dad was riding somewhere with me and I popped the CD in for him to hear. My dad liked all types of music, rock, country, R&B, well maybe not rap . . but most kinds, anyway. He had this presence about him that made me (and many others as well, I believe) try my best to please him, to make him smile. You see, he was not the type that was full of smiles, you had to work for them. I put the CD in and he started doing this thing he used to do when he was listening to something he liked (not dancing; John M. Olinde wouldn't be caught dead 'fast-dancing'), but just a little groove he'd do where he'd sway his head to the rhythm and tap his hand, if you caught him on a good groove. I was happy to make him happy; he told me he liked the music and we talked about what some of the French words meant in the songs; he knew French, I don't. It was a nice moment; we didn't have many moments like that after the kids came along; usually just much chaos and non-stop chattering.

I haven't listened to that CD since my dad died; it's been well over a year. I decided to pop it in yesterday on my way back from lunch. As soon as I heard 'Little Girl, Let Me Walk You Home', it brought me back to that moment grooving with my dad and it made me so happy and so very sad, all at the same time. I wished for him to be sitting next to me smiling. And me smiling back. I've had a few moments, since his death, where it feels like I physically ache to have him here again, and this was one of them. I do believe that he's in a place where he is with us and he truly does know that I'm thinking about him. But I'm selfish and I want to be able to see and talk to him myself. I want the ache to go away but I know it never will. I did notice that I was doing my version of the 'John M. Olinde groove' and tapping away on my steering wheel and that part of him in me will just have to do for now.