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one of the biggest milestones of my success as an artist was when i started giving my dad a thousand dollars on his birthday. it& #39;s a cute story, and i& #39;d like to share it with you now if you have time.
i grew up without a lot of money. i wouldn& #39;t exactly call it poor, because my dad always made it work, but we were always broke. we lived in run down houses with dirt driveways, some christmases he would have to warn us that santa didn& #39;t do so good. you know, shit like that.
because of this, gifts were always kind of weird. we would always default to "please don& #39;t get me anything" when birthdays would come around. i guess it just kind of felt rude to ask for something, or have an expectation you thought someone couldn& #39;t fulfill, you know? anyway...
one year i didn& #39;t know what to get him. he insisted on nothing. so i said, "alright, how about this. my itunes payment is coming through soon. whatever that amount is, i& #39;ll just send it to you this month". he agreed. later that week it came through. it was almost exactly $1000.
i still remember hearing him downstairs when he got the paypal notification on his phone. i was so excited to send over the money, and just a few seconds after i did he yells, "miiiitch! no!". and i just shouted "happy birthday!!" from my bedroom, then ran down and hugged him.
he told this story a lot. i& #39;d hear him on the phone with his friends telling it even years later. "i thought it was going to be like sixty bucks. can you believe mitchy& #39;s doing that with his music? he& #39;s got it all figured out, man. wow, a THOUSAND DOLLARS". i loved hearing that.
anyway, since then it became kind of a tradition that i send him a thousand dollars on his birthday. he, of course, would very reluctantly accept. telling me that i do enough for him, and that he doesn& #39;t need the money, and that i should save it.
my hope was always that he& #39;d spend it on something nice for himself, but he never did. it always got spent slowly and gradually like any other money he had. i guess in a way it was more of a gift to myself, because being able to do it was such an "i made it" moment in my life.
i was so proud to be able to give him anything at all. a place to live, money, a sense of security. and all off a career that i built entirely from the guitar he gave me on my sixteenth birthday? come on, man. that& #39;s some movie type shit. that& #39;s what every artist dreams of.
my dad passed away in november of last year. i didn& #39;t talk about it openly because it affected me so much. from him taking care of me as a kid, to me eventually taking care of him. we passed that baton so seamlessly. i have never known a life without him.
thats why the album got delayed. thats why the shop was closed for months. i still somehow managed to podcast every week, i guess because it was a nice distraction from it all. but still, the moments in between were rough. i guess they still are, but it& #39;s getting a little easier.
today i think about everything that he gave me. not just a guitar and a microphone, but all the christmases we couldn& #39;t afford, and the old houses he fixed up to feel like a home. he instilled in me a sense of freedom, a respect for nature, and an urge to create something.
my father unknowingly sparked something in me, and i took the fuel of that flame and built a career that changed my life and his. what he gave me was priceless, something i could never pay him back for. and still, i just wish i could send him that thousand dollars.
happy birthday, pop. i love you so much, and i miss you so deeply every day. everything that i have today, i have because of you. being able to take care of you was the highlight of my life. thank you.
