Father’s Day

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Summary: A simple comment has Kevin reflecting over the last few years.

AUTHOR: Catw00man
EMAIL: catw00man@cryptoffic.com
RATING: PG
CHARACTER: Kevin Harvick, Dale Earnhardt Jr, Kevin POV
PROMPT: Taming the Muse #100 (#75 for me) - Father’s Day
COMPLETED: June 16, 2008
WORD COUNT: 1,140
DISCLAIMER: I own NOTHING and am affiliated with NO ONE mentioned here. Not the drivers, not the teams, no one. This is all fiction and fun. In other words...NOT REAL, NOT REAL, NOT REAL. ;-)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: He just started babbing and I had to keep up.
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Michigan Speedway: June 15, 2008

“I want to wish all the dads out there a happy Father’s Day.”

How many times have I heard him say that this weekend?  I couldn’t even count but every time it tears at my heart a little more because I know why he’s saying it.  Because he can’t tell the person he wants to tell it to.  I know the feeling.  I’d give anything to be able to tell John Paul happy Father’s Day along with pulling some silly prank that would have him cursing that he ever let me marry his daughter.  But I can’t.  And I won’t tell Mike so I guess in a way that leaves me a lot like him.

Or not.

Either way I still know why, even if I can’t completely understand how he feels.  I just wonder if he knows how much that small thing, that little expression of private pain touches us all.  Sure we’ve all lost people.  There’s not a one of us that hasn’t been touched by some kind of loss in our lives.  But somehow, when you see it with him, it seems so damn personal that it tears your heart out of your chest.

Maybe it’s because his greatest loss was on the biggest stage of them all and he never even had a chance to grieve.  Or maybe it’s because we all know how he was cheated out of something that was just in his grasp.  I don’t think there’s a person that doesn’t know how much he idolized him, literally worshiped him like so many people across the country.  But he was just starting to actually get to know him, to become his friend and son the way it always should have been.  To be looked at as an equal instead of some fuck up kid.

But then it was all ripped away and all any of us could do is stand there and watch.

I’ve heard him talk about him more and more as the years pass by and what strikes me each time is the reverence in his voice in almost every story.  He loved him with his whole heart, respected him as a dutiful son, but to this day I still don’t think he ever really knew him.  And maybe that’s the way it should be.  Maybe it’s better for him to still see him up on that pedestal where Daddy can still do everything and always does the right thing.  I know better than anyone how much it hurts to wake up one day and find out the man you thought could do no wrong just turns out to be another man that fucks up like the rest of us.  Sometimes you just can’t go back from something like that…and I’m kinda glad that will never happen to him.

But it still hurt to watch.

Sometimes I wish I could let him know him the way I did, even though I didn’t know him all that long.  But when I came east and Hornaday took me under his wing, I got to know his Daddy as a racer, a friend, almost an equal, though I dunno if you ever got on completely equal footing with him.  I just know I’ll never shoot a rifle, never go out to shoot skeet that I don’t remember my first time when Ron brought me over to Earnhardt’s farm.  I’d never shot a gun like that before, but before the week was out Dale had Remmington send me one of my own. 

It was the first time I held that gun in my hand that I knew for some reason that he accepted me.  I’m still not sure why.  Maybe it was because of Ron, or because he liked my driving or because Richard hired me, but I tend to doubt it.  I don’t think he used other people or on track performance to judge a man.  That’s what leaves me puzzled because I really don’t understand what he could have seen in me to treat me almost like an equal that he couldn’t have seen in his own son.  Maybe he just never saw through the kid Junior used to be, I don’t know.  I just wish he’d known him like I did, if only for a little while.

Or maybe I don’t.

Stare at him on the screen and I’m so glad he’s back in Victory Lane.  He’s deserved it more than anyone the last couple years, I don’t care what anyone says.  DEI’s been a shit hole since his Daddy died and I’m happy he got away from there, though I still think he should have ended up with us instead of Hendrick.  But as I watch him hugging Rick on TV I understand his decision.  I know they’ll never admit it, maybe it’s just another one of those things the rest of us see and don’t mention, but I’m glad he has that relationship he’s always been looking for…even if it is with someone else’s dad.

Of everything I think I understand that the best.  Family’s what you make it.  I don’t care what the world says sometimes blood isn’t all it’s supposed to be.  And sometimes you get lucky and find the place you belong later in life.  I know I did.  I just wish….

I just hope he cherishes every moment.  Watch him another moment on the screen before switching it off and gathering the rest of my things for the flight home.  He’ll be alright, and if anyone knows how important it is to seize the moment it’s him.  Smile to myself and toss my travel bag over my shoulder.  Earnhardt’s won again.  For awhile everything is right in the world.  Here’s hoping it stays that way for awhile.

Head through my coach to meet D outside and head for the plane but stop at the door to look back for a moment.  Gaze over our home away from home and I remember so much over the past few years, people that have come and gone and won’t come again.  Things have changed a lot since 2001 and sometimes I still have a hard time believing it’s really been seven years.  Glance out the door to see that D and LO are ready to go and then look back one more time.

“Happy Father’s Day, J.P.  We miss you.”

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Catw00man - catw00man@cryptoffic.com