Results tagged “henry”

My son, Henry Mowgli Gillespie, graduates from McCallum High School on Friday evening. It will be his first time on stage at the Erwin Center but perhaps not his last, as he is a musician and you just never know. Choosing the life of an artist (or having the universe impose the life of an artist upon you—who the hell knows which it is) is something I know firsthand. Living the nightmare that the dream sometimes seems—when you’re faced with three cut-off notices from the phone/electric/gas company, the rent is late, and the cupboards are bare— is, I can say with authority, most definitely worth it. Some parents might be horrified at the prospect of a child with no plans beyond playing the guitar and keyboards. I say to my son—You go girl! I am thrilled for you. And proud. And I’m not just saying that in hopes that you’ll skip writing angry songs about your fucked up childhood.

Satch died in my arms yesterday. Today is the seventy-ninth anniversary of my father’s birth. And while I have already written beyond extensively about my father’s life—namely our horrible relationship—and my oldest dog’s life (and waiting for his death), I’m not quite finished with all that yet. Living with Satch was, at times, like living with my father. There were vast differences, of course—for one, Satch was slavishly dedicated to me, eager for my time and attention, at the ready with a wag far more often than not. And yet, like my father, Satch was difficult, randomly aggressive, tenacious to a fault, not interested in putting things down, and extremely bossy with the rest of the pack. He snapped unpredictably, and in the end that snapping extended to me—twice in the past few weeks he came close to biting me.