I can remember driving through Kansas in the pitch black with tornado sirens going off in the distance. The wind was blowing my Toyota 4-Runner back and forth across the road, and the 5×8 U-Haul I was towing felt like it was going to roll at any minute. I couldn’t see anything either, on account of the rain.

It was just me alone in the car. Screaming. AHHHHHH! AHHHHHH! AHHHHHH!

“I’m here, son,” my dad’s voice calmly said. It was about 1 a.m. when I called him.

I was terrified. Bad weather in the middle of nowhere with no one around. I don’t think I saw another car for an hour, and the view of the landscape only was visible when cracks of lightning illuminated the sky.

“There’s a tornado somewhere, and I can’t see it. I am going to die. I can’t see a thing. This trailer is about to flip. Fuck!”

That might seem a little dramatic, but inclement weather has been a fear of mine since I can remember. This was my nightmare. To be fair, I was going straight through Tornado Alley in May.

My dad didn’t get flustered or freak out. He remained calm and stayed on the phone. “I’m looking at the weather now. It looks like you should be through it in about 20 miles. And it’s moving west, so you’ll be in the clear after that,” he said with a hopeful tone in his voice.

He was right. About 45 minutes later, the sky was clear. I found a rest stop near Big Springs and pulled in to take a moment and calm down. It was about 2 a.m.

What was supposed to be an easy 10-hour first leg of my trek from Vail, Colorado, back to Fairhope had turned into 14 hours, with the last three being stressful as hell.

I dozed off.

“Son? You there? You OK?” I was startled a bit and looked at the clock on my dashboard. It was 3:30 a.m.

I had been asleep for a while. I looked at my phone and saw that the timestamp on the screen read 3:30 (give or take a few minutes). It was still counting. Dad never hung up.

We had been on the phone for almost four hours, and I’d been asleep for the last hour and a half. 

“I’m OK. I’m OK,” I said, wiping the sleep from my eyes and yawning. “I’m gonna stop in Kansas City and crash with a friend.” 

“Want me to stay on the phone?” Pops asked. “No. I think I’m good. It’s only about 45 minutes from here.”

“OK. Text me when you get there. I’m here if you need me, son. Love you,” he said. Then we hung up. 

That was something my dad said to us our whole lives. “I’ll be here if you need me.” As we got older and life got more complicated, he incorporated a second part to it: “I’ll be here even if you don’t.”

I know a lot of people say things like that. But he meant it. I would call my dad at 3 a.m. during grad school when I was writing a paper and needed a break. “What’s this one about?” he’d ask as soon as he answered.

“This is about the over saturation of sports coverage in the media and how that has impacted long-form narratives,” I replied. 

“Sounds like something too complicated for an old man like me,” he’d jokingly replied. 

I’d FaceTime him randomly when I caught a signal on a hike. “Check it out,” I said, panning the camera around so he could see the view of the Waipi’o Valley in Hawaii. I was hiking into the valley around 7 p.m. Island Time, which meant it was 12 a.m. back in Alabama.

“Too cool!” he said, his screen still black because he had answered in the middle of the night while asleep. 

“Doing some astrophotography,” I said. “I’m waiting until it gets dark to take some sick photos.” 

“That sounds cool, dude! Call me when you’re done so I know you’re safe,” he said. 

On days when I’d be slammed with work, or maybe sick and hadn’t talked to him in a few days, he would text me: Just checking in, dude. Here if you need me! Here if you don’t.

My pops was always there.

When I started my new job in July 2022 I was listening to a lot of Billy and the boys. I was really digging the 3-night set from Saint Augustine 2022 at the time, which I had the pleasure of attending. There’s also the show at Koka Booth Amphitheatre from 2022 that has a killer cover of “Willin’” that I couldn’t get enough of.

While I was working the jam portion of songs (i.e., no lyrics) would suck me in like a tractor beam. WOOOOHHHMMM. So I wasn’t paying attention to the lyrics like I normally do. I was in the zone analyzing data, mannnnnnnn! 

After my dad passed, I found this little playlist I had made on Nugs called Billy Beats. Not sure why I named it that, but I like it. Makes me think it’s some hip-hop crossover of Billy Strings.

Among the songs on the playlist are: “Willin’,” “Show Me the Door,” “Know it All,” “Watch it Fall,” and “Love Like Me.” Without fail, I listened to that playlist every night when I went to sleep…or I would turn on one of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies and listen to it like an audio book.

Anyway, while moving through all of the grief bullshit, I had one of those moments people sometimes talk about where they feel as if their loved one is speaking to them. An echo, if you will.

For me, that was finally ‘hearing’  the lyrics to “Show Me the Door.”

” I’ll be here if you need me. I’ll be here, even if you don’t.” Those are the first two lines of the chorus.

I would listen to the song OVER and OVER. I knew every part of it, all the way to the end where there’s stage banter among the band about looking for a guy named Joe (not your average Joe) in the crowd.

I’d cry listening to it because it was the mantra that my dad had recited to me my whole life. I have vivid memories of him saying this, like during that drive across Kansas or when I was writing a stupid paper for graduate school.

When I spoke at my his service I recited that mantra. Everyone in attendance felt it. Even if he never said it to them directly, they knew that was the energy he gave the people he loved. If someone there that day didn’t feel it, then didn’t know my dad for shit.

In December that same year, my wife and I took my mom to see Billy in New Orleans. It was night one of his two-night New Year’s Eve run. It was my mom’s first time seeing him, and she was SO excited. We stood in line and got her a poster from the show and other merch.

She proudly wears her merch and talks about that show. She always asks, “What’s the name of that last song he played? The one about the Cadillac?”

Of course, buried in his first set was “Show Me the Door.” I cried as soon as I heard the guitar start up and Billy sang the first few lyrics: “She ebbs and flows like water/And she feels just like wine…”

I cried. I’m crying thinking about it now.

I could feel my pops there with the three of us. I could hear him say:

“I’m glad to finally get to hear Billy Guitar. It seems like that’s all you listen to now. Maybe he’ll play that cool cowboy song! That fucker can play the guitar, Trippy! Look at him go.”

The song was written by Jarrod Walker and Christian Ward, and sung by Billy.

I’d like to thank you, Mr. Ward and Mr. Walker, for unknowingly creating a piece of music that brings my dad’s mantra to life in a new way. Thank you, Mr. Strings, for breathing life in to the lyrics with your voice and guitar pickin’. I always look forward to hearing it live.

I play it when I’m happy. I play it when I’m sad. No matter what I’m feeling, I can hear my dad:

I’ll be here if you need me, son. I’ll be here even if you don’t.

My dad had a steep learning curve. He hated to see me like this.

As I’ve learned from watching my brothers and sisters with their children, being helpless as a parent has to be one of the worst things ever. They just want to make things better. To shield them within reason from any pain or hardship. And that’s exactly what my dad wanted… and it broke his heart when he was powerless to help.

But he tried. So hard. I love him so much for that. I am so fucking lucky.

“What’s wrong, son?” my dad asked me very empathetically while I had my head buried between my legs in the car as a massive panic attack coursed through my body. When I didn’t respond, he asked me again, this time with panic in his voice. “What’s wrong?” 

“QUIT. FUCKING. ASKING. ME. THAT. You are only making things worse!” I screamed back at him.

Boy, that had to have made him feel like shit. Like I didn’t want his help. Like I was pushing him away. I still remember that exact moment like it was yesterday.

I always feel like a piece of shit.

Riding down Highway 98 in Fairhope in the passenger seat of his white Ford Expedition. The windows were down with the humid Alabama air rushing in, only making it harder to catch my breath as the moisture made the air feel heavier. And Pop’s hand resting on my back to let me know he was there.

We eventually arrived at the E.R. at Thomas Hospital. Pops parked in the parking lot (say that five times fast) and didn’t say anything. He didn’t rush out of the car to carry me inside, or go into the waiting room to tell them his son was freaking out. He just sat there.

I’m really choked up thinking about it right now.

I know how bad he wanted to get me into the hospital to make sure I was OK. I know how hard it was for him to sit there and do nothing. But he did. He just sat there with me in the car.

After a few moments, I looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and tears coming down my face and asked, “Can we go home, please?”

“Sure, son,” he said with a smile.

He put the car in drive and headed toward home. “Is it OK if I stop and go into the gas station real quick?” he asked. “Sure,” I replied, totally exhausted from the adrenaline that had just burnt through my body for no reason in particular.

My amygdala didn’t go into fight or flight because a tiger was chasing me, or some shit. I was literally sitting on the porch drinking a beer when my brain decided to go haywire.

Anxiety is so cool.

Dad pulled into the station right by Gulf City Cleaners, a dry cleaning spot, and got out of the car. A few minutes later, he came out with a bag full of snacks and two big fountain Cokes. There were Reese’s, PayDays, Almond Joys, Zapp’s chips – all sorts of shit. He made sure to cover his bases.

No snack left unturned!

“Let’s watch a movie when we get home. Or we can hit the hay. Either way, we have snacks,” he said with the biggest smile on his face. Onward we went.

That was it. He acted like the incident never happened. And that’s because that’s what I needed. I didn’t need to explore and talk about the past 45 minutes immediately after it happened. I needed someone to listen and treat me like I was “normal.”

When we got home, I gave him a big hug and said,

“Thank you and I’m sorry.” He didn’t let me go but squeezed me tighter. “I am always here for you, son. Just tell me what you need.”

I grabbed the Reese’s and PayDay from the bag, laid down on the couch, and turned on the TV. “You took the PayDay?!” he said. “You little fucker.” We both laughed.

“How about we watch that movie with all the cool music,” Pops suggested. “The one with that little raccoon.”

He was talking about Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1 (GoG); a film that neither of us had planned on watching when it was released. But we both arrived there with a little help from the Universe.

There is a large sequence of events that eventually led me to see GoG Vol. 1. It involved the premature birth of the first child for one of my best friends, graduate school, my love of fountain Cokes and movie theater popcorn, and an extreme amount of humidity suffocating the air outside.

“Dad! You and Mom HAVE to watch Guardians of the Galaxy,” I told him during one of my afternoon walks with Coltrane. My dad was a lot like me in that he would give anything a chance, especially if one of his kids recommended it. I sensed hesitancy in his voice, though.

“Isn’t that some superhero cartoon?” he asked. “I don’t know if I want to watch that shit. Seems chooky.”

“But it’s got great music! The songs we used to listen to while driving down the road in the Trooper,” I countered before singing the lines, “IF YOU LIKE PINA COLADAS… GETTING CAUGHT IN THE RAIN.”

“Does the movie have some old jukebox or boombox on the cover?” he asked. He was referring to the Awesome Mix Volume 1 mixtape that Peter Quill, AKA Star-Lord, keeps loaded in his Sony Walkman at ALL TIMES during the film.

“Yeah. How did you know that?” I responded.

It turns out that my oldest sister, LaLa, and her family had given Pops the soundtrack from GoG Vol. 1, and the cover art was in fact a view of the Awesome Mix Volume 1 mixtape inside of the Walkman!

I think she either gave it to him for his birthday or just because – since LaLa is one of the kindest humans on the planet.

“That music is fucking GREAT! LaLa gave me that CD, and I have been cruising in the car with the windows down. Your mother and I will watch it.”

“The little raccoon. Rocket. He is my favorite character. He’s like me!” I blurted into the conversation.

“A raccoon?” my pops asked. “He must be a cool raccoon, dude! Gotta go! Love you!” And he hung up.

So, let me tell you why I love Rocket and why my dad came to love Rocket.

There is a scene in the movie where Rocket, a cyber-genetically engineered raccoon, takes his shirt off. You can see he has experienced some type of physical trauma. His body has scars, metal nodes, apparent implants, and patches of fur missing.

The charming and witty Star-Lord, the eventual leader of the Guardians played by Chris Pratt, sees these marks, and his facial expression is one that I can best describe as shocked.

Of course, this had to have come from Rocket’s appearance and not from the fact that he had found himself in the midst of a talking raccoon, right?

Fast forward to later in the movie when Rocket is drunk and arguing with Drax, another Guardian embodied by the incredibly talented Dave Bautista. Drax calls Rocket vermin in the exchange, and Rocket responds by saying:

Keep calling me vermin, tough guy! You just wanna laugh at me like everyone else! He thinks I’m some stupid thing! Well, I didn’t ask to get made! I didn’t ask to be torn apart and put back together, over and over and turned into some…some little monster!

That scene hit me like a ton of bricks.

In 2005, I was diagnosed with a mental health disorder. I was 18 years old. It was tough to wrap my head around the diagnosis. I experienced a period where I tried to rationalize why this happened and what I did to cause it.

Maybe some of you reading this can relate.

I tried to hide my disorder, but it always managed to poke its head out. Whether I went into a full-blown panic attack that resulted in me asking the closest human if they could drive me to the emergency room, or a rush of intrusive thoughts that left me paralyzed and needing a ride home, I always had to explain why.

That sucked.

People often reacted with that look that Star-Lord gave Rocket when he saw his cobbled body. A look of confusion and shock.

“So, does that mean you are like, crazy?” a person once responded with a terrified look painted on their face.

I got a lot of different reactions and expressions. None felt great. They sent my brain into hyperdrive and questions just filled my mind.

“Am I broken? Am I crazy?” I mean fuck, you can really make yourself believe you are “some little monster” if you let your brain ride the roller coaster long enough. If you think of the way people often respond.

I talk about this diagnosis and its impact in the Shaynee Lee story.

You are probably wondering how Rocket intersects with my pops and why he gave a shit about the character. That’s a fair question.

My family has been there for me every step of the way since my diagnosis. I am very grateful that the Universe gave me these people. They are a large reason I am here to write about this. Them and Coltrane.

In those early days, I would have complete breakdowns. Paralyzed in fear in empty parking lots, texting my family to come find me. Waking Pops/Mom up at 2 a.m. to take me to the E.R. Losing my shit and moving further into anxiety when people asked, “What’s wrong.”

Like I said, my family members had a steep learning curve.

But overtime, through communicating what worked and what didn’t work, my family became so good at navigating those episodes that they should all have awards. 

When I’d ask my dad what was wrong with me, he’d say, “Not a fucking thing! You are Greenberry Taylor da turd (no spelling error). There is no one else like you.” My mom said the exact same thing, minus the profanity.

So, when I told pops that Rocket was like me – he got it. 

“Ain’t no thing like me, except me! That raccoon is too cool!,” my pops texted me. 

Yup. Ain’t no thing like Greenberry Taylor da turd except me. 

Editors Note: I was told by the robot that delivers my mail on the moon that James Gunn reads this blog religiously. So, a quick shoutout to Mr. Gunn for creating characters and a trilogy that is one of my favorites of all time. I know my dad would have loved Volume 3. 

I tapped the green felt twice. It was Friday night in Vegas and I was feeling lucky. My fingers aren’t as chubby as my dad’s, but memories of us playing Blackjack flooded my brain.

“Hit me low,” he’d say to the dealer, tapping his two fingers on the table.

I started to cry. I’d say it was weird, but it’s Vegas. People probably thought I was on a losing streak. But also, I could give a flying fuck. 

I left the table, making my way through cocktail waitresses and a cacophony made up of slot machines, players’ cheers and sighs, and people singing Grateful Dead lyrics. 

I got back to my hotel room and turned on Game 4 of the NBA Finals. The Mavs were massacring my Celtics. I was already sad thinking about Blackjack, but then I had one of those moments where I expected my pops to text me.

“Luka is kicking our ass! We will get them in Game 5! Having a good time? Win any money player? Concert good? Looks cool dude!”

That’s the text I was expecting. But I knew deep down my phone wasn’t going to deliver that text.

I knew Father’s Day would suck. And it does. This is the second Father’s Day without my pops. Last year it was the heels of his death that I was sad, but the weight I feel this year wasn’t present. I suppose the reality of it has just become more solidified as time moves on.

The weeks leading up to today are just primers for making it worse. There are fucking advertisements everywhere, basically inescapable reminders that I won’t be celebrating. I tried to think back on past Father’s Day for some good memories.

Of course, I beat myself up for the last one we got to celebrate with dad. Or should I say the one where everyone else but me celebrated with him.

It was 2022 and I had a headache. My sister Shai was having the celebration at her house, where my other four siblings and their families would be. We had planned a little cookout with one dad’s favorite desserts to cap the day: homemade ice cream.

But I wasn’t there. I had a migraine and stayed home. I play it back frequently. My sister Mal leaving the house with dad. “Not feeling good dude,” she said, peeking her head in my room. “No,” I replied in a sickly voice. “Ok. If you start feeling better you can come over whenever.”

I heard her start to leave and my dad said, “Trippy still not feeling good? He’s not going to be able to come?”

What an absolute piece of shit.

That’s what I say to myself when I think about that Father’s Day. I could have pushed through that migraine. It wasn’t bad enough to stay home. What a selfish decision I made. There’s a photo with my four siblings and pops and I’m not in it.

My siblings and family all tell me not to think like that. They say it’s OK, reassuring me of family events they missed because they were sick, or maybe one of their kids wasn’t feeling well.

I know it’s not a kind thing to say to myself, but it’s the reality that comes when someone you love is no longer here. A common pitfall to focus on all of the things you did wrong or didn’t say, losing sight of the good memories.

After the text didn’t come Friday night during the Celtic massacre, I searched my phone for the phrase “Father’s Day.” I found a string of texts dating back to 2016 where I wished pops a good day. They were so lovely.

I usually was working the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on Father’s Day, so a lot of the texts were, “Happy Father’s Day from the Roo!” In fact, the festival is happening right now. Dad would respond saying he loved me. I would call him later in the day to chop it up with him, and then the next day I’d ask how his day was.

The texts made me smile. They made the shitty feeling that engulfed me earlier when I was beating myself up about a migraine slowly disappear. And that’s a large part of who my dad was.

He always tried to make people, especially his family, feel better.  I know he saw me beating myself up and said, “Don’t do that, son. Please don’t do that to yourself.”

He was witty, and kind. He gave WAY more than he received. He would move mountains to help the people he loved, or a total stranger. He was more interested in making people smile than himself. He cooked the best seafood ever.

He had an infectious laugh and sense of humor, but also a fierce loyalty that flipped a “don’t fuck with them” switch if he felt his crew was threatened or mistreated.

He was cut from a different cloth. 

Today sucks. But I know exactly what he would do on this day. Before receiving calls from his kids to wish him a happy Father’s Day, he’d send us a group text to my siblings and I, and it would sound something like this.

“Happy Father’s Day to Jeff, Chris, and Jack (those are my 3 sisters’ husbands), and to Justin! I’m so lucky to have four men that are great fathers to their children! I hope they have a great dad. I love you all so much. Dad.”

So, I will make an effort to remember how much I loved my dad today. To remember how much my brothers and sisters loved my dad. To remember how much everyone loved my dad. I’ll focus on my pops, and not that stupid migraine.

WAIT! I forgot to finish my story about Friday night! 

After I rode the intense reality wave of dad being gone, and the Celtics losing big, I got up to grab a shower. I needed to wash the smell of cigarettes (gross) out of my hair. I was reaching in my pockets to set out my wallet and whatever else was in there on the counter when I found a $25 chip.

I thought for a moment. I slid put the chip in my pocket, slid my shoes on, and made my way back to the casino. 

Wearing my tie dye Bill Walton Portland Trail Blazers t-shirt (rest easy, big dude), I found a Blackjack table that was empty. It has a different dealer, thank God. The one from earlier wasn’t very friendly. There was no banter or small talk, and when I started to cry simply they simply said, “Please don’t get water on the cards.”

I sat down at the table and the dealer smiled. I placed the $25 chip down and the dealer laid out the first card…a 2 of spades. Not great, but I was still in the game. Next came a face card, the Jack of diamonds. Ouch. 

I was sitting on 12 and the dealer was showing a face card, but didn’t have Blackjack. I tapped my two fingers on the green felt to signify I wanted another card.

This time, as the dealer was preparing to pull the card I said, “Hit me low.”

Boom. Face card. Bust.