Dad

I just realized that today is the anniversary of my dad's death.

Strange, how I've thought about it all week, and now (10 pm) is the first time today....

He died a long time ago. I've lived more than half my life without him.

Not only have I forgotten what it's like to have a dad, I've also gotten to the point that I'd rather not know.

So much time has passed that those things that I've forgotten are now becoming fresher in my mind... almost remembering more things and things more clearly now. (Like the older adults who can't remember what they had for breakfast or when their yoga class is, but can see clearly the numbers of their freshman school locker combination or first-ever-date Ed's phone number.)

It's sad, thinking about time passing and bringing me closer to my eventual end, which I see as peacefully passing on in my sleep... unaware, unstressed, unplanning (that is, if I knew I was going to die I'd be rushing around making preparations and getting organized and doing everything myself. Which doesn't leave a lot of room for the unawareness and unstressed, and definitely not the peacefulness of it).

Not that it's about me or anything. Except it kind of is. After all, I was only

14.

A kid.

A kid who was lost and isolated and hadn't found her place in the world

(and wouldn't for another 14 years).

I wasted the next three years in mourning. Deep mourning.

There was biblical mourning during this endeavour complete with the wailing and the gnashing of the teeth, and I did contemplate sackcloth to pour ashes on and rend, but I didn't know exactly what it was and couldn't find enough empty potato sacks to use.

Many nights crying to sleep. Many depressing days. Much numbness. And much anger towards another family member who made it all about her. There was also my annoying bitterness, sarcasm and lashing out at those around me.

And the getting sent away to a boarding academy so that my family wouldn't have to deal with my grief

(and anger and lashing out).

But I started healing.

I started to recover, with a lot of guilt for feeling better.

But let me tell you, the healing takes a long time. Long after the mourning and the missing of the deceased is over, long after you remember all those things that you wish you could have said and didn't, what you could've done and didn't, and that turns to guilt and fresh sorrow.

Then, years later, as you're piecing the jagged edges of your well-used heart together you find strange emotions coming out. Like anger, disappointment, resentment, blame, disgust, bitterness... and it's all towards someone who cannot defend himself, who tried his best, was caught in a situation beyond his means and understanding and coping skills. Someone who was trying to make it month to month and year to year.

Until he found out he needed to focus on day to day...

moment to moment.

Until they were gone.

I can say he tried.

There was a mellowing about him that was as poignant as his frailty, as his body wasting away.

And then he was gone.

And so was a part of me that I'm still looking for.

Good-bye Dad.