Jack moved out on Labour Day weekend, he didn’t come home for Thanksgiving, and Melissa and I have no idea if the kid is going to turn up for Christmas.
This titanic change has been a shock to what I had always considered a fairly idyllic, if modest, home life with Melissa, Jack, his twin Emmet, and me all tucked in our two-bedroom apartment. It was crowded, but we made do.
In the P2 parking level of our building, Jack would hone his trumpet tone playing Miles Davis, Clifford Brown, and Roy Hargrove. On the living room upright, he’d discover chord progressions so pretty I’d get a lump in my throat. And it was in the kitchen, when he was preparing scrambled eggs, where you could hear him scatting to Ella or Coltrane.
His love of music was a dream come true for me. Since the twins were born, I had filled our place with guitars, brasswinds, glockenspiels, and keyboards with the hope they would love music as much as I did. Emmet is a dual instrumentalist, but it was Jack who went on to study jazz in university.
A few months after graduation, he decided that he should live with his music school friends. At first, I tried to accept this as the normal course of life, that this was no biggie.
We carted his belongings to a strange house in Burnaby Heights and began to undo our once happy home. When the last load hit the curb, Melissa stepped out of the Toyota and embraced Jack. She said, “I love you.”
He must have murmured, “I love you, too.”
But I didn’t catch it. I had stayed in the car. You know, trying to fly casual. As he picked up the last trumpet case, I waved to him from the passenger window. Melissa drove away, and by the time we hit the Willingdon overpass, I experienced absolute heartbreak. Not since my father died had I felt loss like that, and I haven’t been able to shake it.
Now, I must make an admission that will make you think I’m a clingy sentimental fool. Jack lives 20 minutes away. He calls me on his work lunch break. We see him pretty much once a week. What could I possibly be grieving?
At first, I thought it was the loss of his daily presence. But I don’t know. After receiving his degree, there was a shaky phase. For three summer months, he plopped himself in front of a gaming PC and played Helldivers for hours. It irritated the heck out of me. I thought he was wasting time, opportunity, and talent, and I told him so. Then it’d be his turn to get annoyed. I don’t miss me or him being like that. What I do miss, now that I have a chance to think about it, is akin to the loss of a job, a sense of purpose.
The day he took music seriously, I transformed into the worst kind of stage dad. Sure, I did helpful things like record his audition reels, polish his black leather concert shoes, and scour the internet, thrift stores, and music shops for the instruments that would unlock a greatness I was sure he held within. I was like a crazed hockey dad. No expense could be spared.
For example, he plays a rare Italian instrument. We found it at Massullo Music (if you play brasswinds in Vancouver, you know it) in his freshman year, two weeks before Christmas. Originally, I was there to buy him a flugelhorn. But Sandro, the owner, heard the way Jack played and recommended my son try the most expensive trumpet in the joint. I went pale. It had a bigger price tag than our car.
After we left the shop, Jack confessed to me he felt like he was leaving a part of himself behind. Of course, when Christmas came around, he not only found a 1978 Olds L-12 flugelhorn under the tree. Right beside it was a G&P Flora horn from the town of Legnano.
I mention all this to highlight the lengths I would go to develop his artistry. I’d pick out pants and printed shirts with pizzazz so he would always look great on stage. If he needed a dinner jacket for a formal gig, well, I had four ready to go. I was stylist, valet, and roadie. I got deep into his business, and sometimes I crossed the line.
When he practised more contemporary and experimental techniques, I complained he was slurring notes. When he learned to improvise, I accused him of noodling. When he refused to record vocals, I bitterly reminded him that’s where the money was. We argued about Instagram and YouTube posts. No wonder the poor kid wanted to move. He needed to get away from me.
It’s taken me until now to realize I felt rejected. And it’s okay. I was no longer meant to hover as I did when he learned to ride a bike. It was time for my son to roll on his own.
Funny, though, since moving out, he’s started thrifting for stage clothes, which he had always loathed doing with me. Last week he took a picture of a jacket he just scored. It’s a wildly patterned mash of embroidery and jacquard, totally eyecatching, great showbiz, that would pop on stage.
I couldn’t have picked a better one myself.
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