Letters on Dad

Dealing with sudden loss by diving deep

[lettersonlosingdad]

Yesterday in a store as I flipped through the racks, I grabbed a shirt and thought “oh my gosh Dad will love this one.” Ten years have gone by and sometimes you’re still close enough in my mind to think of what to hide away for Christmas. So I bought the shirt in the biggest size they had and I’ll wear it around like a hug to you, from you, for you.

[lettersonlosingdad]

What I write when a friend loses a parent

First off, you never need to respond to this. Second, life is unfair and this sucks and is awful and I am so so sorry you are going through it.

I won’t tell you it gets easier to live without them, but I promise it does get easier to remember the good times, to hear their favorite song on the radio and not change it, to order their favorite drink on their birthday at a bar and not have to wipe away more than just a tear or two while you smile. There is another side to this pain and grief where it lives with you instead of against you, when it settles in your heart instead of squeezing it tight.

Don’t be afraid to say their name and mention them in stories to anyone. The first time someone you don’t know well asks about them and you have to say that they’re gone, your heart will race. The “oh I’m so sorry” and pity on their faces is something you somehow get used to. “Oh they passed away” will roll off your tounge one day and yet you’ll still pick up the phone to call them sometimes when sitting in traffic. There’s a strange thing that will happen to time- it divides into before they left and after and yet sometimes that line gets blurry. I always reach for my phone to call dad when I’m putting gas in my car. I say hi to him in my head now. It helps a little.

Lastly, if you’re feeling numb right now, that is fine. If you can’t stop crying, that is fine. If you want to go back to work and life and just ignore this terrible unfair cruel thing that has happened; that is fine. There is no right way to deal with this. And if you want someone to talk to, or someone to watch old movies with and not talk at all, I am here.

[lettersonlosingdad]

Traffic Vingette

Early morning, stuck in traffic, high on an overpass, blue sky above, Chris Stapleton wailing on the radio, I grab my phone to call you.

Eight years gone and sometimes it’s still easy to forget you’re not on the other end of the phone anymore.

[lettersonlosingdad]

One more dinner with you

If you could have dinner with any person dead or alive, who would it be?

A simple question, asked at job interviews and work dinners. Oh Frank Sinatra, Lucille

Ball, MLK. Ghandhi, Robin Williams.

But the truth I couldn’t bare to share at a corporate meal is I’d do anything for one more dinner with my father.

I’d pick a twelve course tasting menu, with wine pairings. I’d say at least two of the courses were made wrong and send them back, just to have more time. I’d sip everything slowly, drag the spoon through the last dregs of sauce for more time with him.

A course or two just to get used to the sound of his voice again. Can you say my name, over and over. Say I love you too. Whistle a silly tune.

I’d ask the things I never knew I wouldn’t have the time to. Tell me about your parents, the navy. Where was your favoritoe place to travel? Your favorite movie of all time? When I miss you, what song should I play over and over again because the only ones I think of make me cry?

We’d laugh. There would be joy. I’d tap the bottom of the bottle the get the last drops and make the night last longer. Can you believe I didn’t drink wine when you left and now here I am savoring a red?

“It’s too soon to end, Dad. One more story. One more glass.”

Do you send us signs? My sister thinks you send blue birds and robins and sometimes I swear you come though the radio but is that all too wishful thinking and mundane? Hug the dog for me. Give nana my love.

It’s too soon to end, Dad. Let me have these daydreams and keep you here as long as I can in any way I can.

[lettersonlosingdad]

things I’ve learned about my father since he passed away

He played guitar and sang for fun;

He had two Dobermans and a motorcycle in his 20s.

He passed a bartending course and scratched out his favorite drinks on yellow lined paper.

He kept my high school playbills in a box.

Grand Marnier was his favorite liquor.

Once he opened the doors and turned the radio loud and danced with my mom in a Walmart parking lot.

The guitar and dogs were long gone by time I came around, soon after their marriage as well. And now he is too and I lay at night trying to hear his voice, a 70s ballad, and a lone acoustic chord.

[lettersonlosingdad]

Things I remember about Dad and Christmas

Jotting these down while letting the Christmas blues live with me until this second cup of coffee is gone. Letting myself tear up but not letting them fall because god isn’t crying on Christmas morning just too cliche?

They’d save a few ornaments for me and my sister to place on the tree

We watched Scrooge and Elf every year. Elf for everyone else and then we’d scatter to play with new toys or video games and me and dad would turn on Scrooge and play Monopoly. We both had to sing “Thank you very much”

Lots and lots of Christmas Monopoly

Driving to look at the big park’s Christmas light now. The smell of smoke in the front seat of his white jeep. Him driving with one hand out the window, fingers twitching for a cigarette.

“Isn’t this neat?!”

He loved the computer games as much as we did

The fake Yule log on the tv. Flipping over the laser disk half way through a movie. That time we watched Die Hard after opening presents.

Him making NesQuick chocolate milk in the kitchen

Before he met my step mom, when we came into the living room to see the tunnel jungle gym he bought all set up. Joy.

Him on the patio at nana’s on Christmas Eve night. Looking back to catch his eyes and see him smile when Santa walked through the door.

He’s waiting outside in that Jeep when mom wakes me up. I know there’s a box of candy waiting for us to eat in the car on the way to his house.

It’s Christmas, your dad is waiting. Keep your pjs on. The world is safe and right.

[lettersonlosingdad]

Letter to Dad (on the man in the elevator)

Hi Daddy, The man in the elevator was wearing your jacket today. I almost didn’t notice. I was running late, again, fixing my not-completely-dry hair in the shiny reflection of the elevator door when I realized that the man standing in front of me was wearing your jacket. You know which jacket I’m talking about. I’m 99% sure it’s the only jacket you ever owned. The one you wore to my pre-K graduation and 18 years later laid on top of suitcases to make the trip up to Virginia for my college graduation. When I won that scholarship at the big awards ceremony downtown, I held it on my lap as you drove us in rush hour traffic so I could be there 2 hours early as required and then you held it in your lap in the lobby while you played Angry Birds on your phone till everyone else got there and you found your seats. When they called my name I squinted up to the top left from the stage and somehow, despite the bright lights, made out you standing in the front row, smiling and clapping, in your grey and black speckled suit jacket. I swore you’d show up in that jacket to my wedding and I’d have to fight you into a proper suit. The man in the elevator was wearing you jacket. Not really yours, of course. His was more brown and baggy while yours is grey and smells like your cologne and faintly of cigarette smoke. But it was enough to make me hold my breath and feel my eyes sting and ball my hands into fists so I didn’t reach out to touch it as we rose up to the 24th floor together. I’m going to ask my stepmom to bring me that jacket, if she wouldn’t mind. I’ll lay it in the closet and stroke its sleeve as I get ready for work and burry my face in it years from now to get a hint of your cologne. I’ll drape it across your chair in the front row at my wedding without a single complaint that it doesn’t match the groomsmen’s, because it’s yours.

[lettersonlosingdad]

I did ask my stepmom about the jacket and if I could have it. “It went with him,” she said. As much as I’d like if hanging in my closet, it’s a comfort to know he went to rest in a jacket I held so many times, one I can still imagine the feel of under my cheek with the weight of his hands at my back.

[lettersonlosingdad]

My mother writes on my Dad’s Facebook sometimes. I’m glad we never deactivated it- a virtual shrine of comments from me and my sister, my stepmom. Birthday greetings and “miss yous” every year from his cousins.

My parents divorced when I was very little. She cries for him, maybe mostly for us but definitely at least a bit for herself.

“Watch over our babies. They make us proud.”

I hope I do. I hope he does.

Love you Daddyo.

[lettersonlosingdad]

“I want to ask you something”, my mom says over coffee. A homecoming ritual of shared caffeine and life updates.

“Your fathers ashes... I think it’s time we do something with them.”

Are you ever prepared for the words “your fathers ashes”? Can those words ever seem like anything other than nonsense?

My father’s ashes are heavier than I expected. They’re in a box we hid in a closet because mom swears he said he wanted to be creamated and my dad was not supposed to die so young and god, I was young and lord knows I never asked him what to do when that supposed-to-be-distant day came.

My fathers ashes sit on the shelf contained but I feel the remnants of him everywhere. When I go to a wedding they make my eyes fill with tears. When I watch his football team win they join the confetti. His favorite old movies are now hazy through his loss. Sometimes I look down at my quarantine unpainted fingernail and the weird way it hits the light makes it his.

After five and a half years, my fathers ashes still can bring me to tears without warning.

“I never asked him, Mom.” The tears start. So much I never asked him, so much I’ll never be able to, starting with what to do with the heavy box on the shelf in the closet.

[lettersonlosingdad]

He used to come home, empty handed, and say he saw a man selling flowers on the street corner and thought of buying them for me. Then smile as if his thought was worthy of praise. I would cry in the shower at night wondering why I wasn’t worth more than a passing thought of a bouquet.

You used to bring single roses when you picked me up from school just because.

I forgot this for a while when you died but now I remember :

I am worthy of good thoughts that are backed by good actions.

I am worthy of the entire flower stand.

[lettersonlosingdad]

254-6...something

“Could it be under your Dad’s?” A simple question asked in the middle of an auto store from my mom. “What’s the number? I’ll give it a try,” from the salesman trying to locate the warranty on an almost-too-old battery.

What’s the number? What’s the number? A pause and a horrible feeling of guilt. “254-6....”

How could I forget your number? I used to call it all the time, receiting it out loud for my car to dial because the voice recognition never worked. You never changed it from when you first got a cell, converting it to an internet line when you left the country so the number never went away. How could I forget? The last message from the number was a notification a month after you left. “Dad cell has left family sharing.” I left my grocery cart in the middle of the store to run to the car and cry.

“254-6....... I’m sorry, is there another way?”

I’m sorry I forget, Dad. At some point in the last 4 years I lost your number. I worry I’ll continue to forget all these little things and someday there won’t be enough of them to form a whole of you in my mind. Is there another way than this?

[lettersonlosingdad]

And I know that they say “have a happy holiday.” And every year, I sincerely try. Oh, but Christmas, it always makes me cry.

[lettersonlosingdad]

Missing

Last night I had a vivid dream that I came home to an apartment I don’t know. It was decorated for Christmas but someone had thrown things around. Broken plates, toppeled lamps, star askew on the tree. I looked out the window into a dark forest as I called the police. The man on the phone asked what’s wrong and all I could say was “it is missing.”

“What is missing, ma’am? What’s missing?”

“It is missing.”

On the counter was a note, in my father’s familiar scrawl. He is sorry, he loves me, he can’t be here anymore. “Please send help. He is missing. Oh god, what if he never comes back?”

“Who is missing, ma’am? Who is missing?”

Out the window, my father’s back in a familiar polo disappears into the forest. I scream. He turns and gives a small smile then continues to walk away.

Running out the door, no shoes on my feet, I feel the damp grass seep cold into my skin. A man I don’t know grabs my shoulders. “I’m sorry, ma’am.” “He is missing.” “I know.” The man disappears. I fall to the ground and grab the damp grass with my hands.

There is no one to hold my shoulders when I wake up with tears on my pillow.

[lettersonlosingdad]

My Father's Treasure Box

My Father's Treasure Box When my father left for the hospital, he waked past his treasure box on the dresser. When he never returned, it was given to me. My stepmother says he looked at its contents every few weeks. I held the wooden box I had never seen before in my lap and wished I knew what each treasure meant to him. A coin from every country he visited. A pin of an anchor he got in the Navy. A broken gold necklace my mother made him when she was pregnant with me in '92. An Indian head penny as old as him. A reproduction of a 1875 quarter, now worth 3 dollars on eBay (we checked in case of hidden wealth). A stamp torn from a letter. A bracelet of my mother's she thought she lost years ago. Two Chuck E Cheese tokens from '98. And a '96 dime with a '97 nickel, covered in green play dough caked on from age.

I'll never know where he found the foreign coins, or Indian penny. What letter the stamp was from or what the Navy pin was for. But I know that my hands held those tokens as a child and covered that 15 cents in green, and then my father's hands held them and cherished them for twenty years.

In my treasure box, there is a card from my grandfather. A play ticket from high school, a pebble from a beach. And now two Chuck E Cheese tokens and 15 cents covered in green. And an Indian head penny, from '50.

[lettersonlosingdad]

Dear void (on wasted wishes)

Sometimes, when the clock hits 11:11 or I catch sight of the first star in the sky or I touch my face and come away with an eyelash on my finger, I close my eyes as tightly as I can and wish for my father. I picture his face and his laugh and imagine him saying my name. I can smell his cologne and taste white tic-tacs and for a second feel my face pressed into his chest. When I am pessimistic, those moments seem like wasted wishes, a wasted opportunity to ask the universe for something good. But sometimes, when I time it right, the universe aligns, and I close my eyes extra tight, I think it brings him back. If only for a moment.

[lettersonlosingdad]

Dear void, (on guilt)

I feel guilty for my father's death. Ive only said that out loud once before, to my ceiling in the dead of night when I couldn't sleep. My dad lived in a different country, with my stepmom. He told me about his cancer on a Tuesday and was gone the following Saturday in a surgery to remove the tumor. I should have told him he had to come home. I should have taken out my credit card and bought them tickets here and walked him into a hospital and demanded somebody help him. I should not have let him say no. That was my job. My little sister trusted me, and I mistakenly allowed him to go into a long surgery with the best surgeon in a country where he didn't even speak the language. I keep imagining the moment he died and all these doctors and nurses screaming in a language he didn't even understand over him. He was asleep so he wouldn't have known but I still see it over and over. I should have demanded he come home. I should have been in the waiting room to say goodbye. I should have fought for him. I will live with this guilt forever. I know he wouldn't want me to but it doesn't matter. He was my dad, my responsibility, and I failed him. I failed him.

[lettersonlosingdad]

Dear Void, (on dreams)

I've been having reoccurring dreams lately, which I have since I was little. In this one, I'm wearing a white dress and walking through a garden the rain, carrying something important right to my chest to protect it. I come across automatic doors, like those to a hospital and step inside to a large white room, with white walls and floors and 2 white chairs to my left. Someone who once cared about me is standing by the chair. It's a different person ever dream; an old teacher, a friend's mom, my aunt. I walk to them say "Daddy" and fall into their arms sobbing, still clinging to whatever it is I'm holding to my chest. They hold me. I sob. They hold me. I wake up with tears soaking my pillow. No one holds me.