I Love Springsteen’s Anthem “Growing Up” But He Left Out A Verse, The Verse Of The Elusive Feeling When I May Have Grown Up Worse than that, I am not sure how the verse should go. It has to do with a vague memory of me watching my Dad walk away. May have been after lunch together in my late teens. Who knows what the conversation was about? As he walked away, a wave of emotion, maybe a sadness, To this day it is still a ghost in my peripheral vision. Maybe it was the first time I was seeing him as not my Dad. Maybe it was the first time I was seeing him as just another human being With all the frailties and doubts and broken dreams. Maybe it was his gift of telling me I’m on my own. I don’t believe he even knew. He had done all he could do and the rest was up to me. All I remember is him dressed in his suit going back to work Walking away. There are moments lost but not erased, Interpreted through the normal mechanisms but too novel to be stored. Yet, they do get stored but in the attic of the guest house that no one ever visits. Like the time I rode my bike to Beth’s house Beyond the safe zone a sixth grader should be traveling. Somewhere in the attic the hurt is still hiding. The early morning ringing of the phone while my Dad was away on a business trip, That is not in a secret place. That day I lost any chance of an explanation. That day I lost any chance of having a role model beyond my teenage years. Now I am a Dad. My kids are all grown and out on their own. Someday, I guess, I’ll also have to walk away.