Note: when I originally set out to pen some thoughts on Dad, this is not at all what I had envisioned. Oh well...
A year ago today, my father died. As he was terminally ill for about fifteen years, it definitely wasn't a shock or surprise, yet I can still recall my incredulity when Mom called me that morning. You know that feeling right after a nap, where you could have kept sleeping, but you had to wake up, and you're in a zombiesque trance for about thirty minutes or so? Not absent-minded nor aloof, but not really there in the moment either, like a mental and emotional state of limbo? I felt like that for the subsequent week I spent in Texas. I'm sure I could recall most, if not all, details of that week if asked a specific question, but I couldn't begin to tell you any sort of chronology, or even a specific story or event, unless it happened to be at the front of my mind at that specific moment.
Most of us have heard of, or experienced, the five stages of grief. In the abstract, one would think that you simply flowed from denial to acceptance in a more or less linear fashion, with stops at anger, bargaining and depression along the way. Not the largest leap in logic would bring you to the idea that you might float back and forth between stages along the way, but still progressing towards acceptance. Not me; the Watson computer with a statistical forecasting software package couldn't do better than 20% at surmising which stage I'd be, or will be, in at any given moment. Maybe that's common, what do I know about emotions.
When I got to Texas, I knew the ostensible things I was supposed to do: help with the funeral planning along with my mom and brother, organize the out-of-towners' arrivals and departures, cook meals, etc. They were pleasant distractions; maybe that's the idea. What I didn't know how to do was to "be there". I've always hated that phrase; what the hell does that mean anyway? As I have no real concept as to what it means, I have no idea if I accomplished that or not.
Also, I didn't know (and still don't know) how to handle people when they approached me. When someone would say "I'm sorry for your loss", "How are you doing?", etc., my mind would immediately jump to the absurd replies I so wish I could have vocalized:
"He's not lost; he's right there" (pointing to the casket).
"Yeah, too bad I let the warranty lapse."
"I was splendid, until you reminded me what's going on. Thanks, dickhead."
"Just living the dream."
And the obvious... "I'm doing better than he is."
I don't mean to be disrespectful, sacrilegious, or anything like that, but that's the kind of stuff I wanted to say. Of course, I would have either a.) terribly offended someone that was just trying to be nice (which I tend to avoid whenever possible/convenient) or, even worse, b.) get people thinking "he's having a hard time coping...", thus increasing the amount of trite one-liners I'd have to endure. I swear to Vishnu, I actually had to research how to handle this crap in order to come up with "Thank you" as the appropriate response.
The fact is, I've never known how to deal with my emotions, and that's why I keep them bottled up, deep inside, right where they belong. I don't bother them, and they don't bother me. Of course, just like the morning after a Mexican buffet, that shit comes out when you're least prepared.
Prior to the funeral, the minister asked me if I would want to say any words at the service. In a moment of clarity, I told him that I thought I should, and that I wanted to, but I didn't know if I'd be able. We worked out some minister-to-idiot cryptography so I could let him know during the service if I would or not. When the eulogies started, there was at least some comic relief in this one guy standing up and speaking that I'm not entirely convinced wasn't a funeral crasher. I think he was my maternal grandparents' neighbor or some such shit, and it was nice that he came and all, but more than a touch inappropriate to eulogize a man whom he'd never met. Whatever; I enjoyed it. It was like some non-sequitur scene from a Todd Phillips movie, and I like Todd Phillips' movies.
I think about ten people got up to speak, which seems like an above-average amount. Of course, after the court jester's performance, I was a bit more relaxed and ready to speak, but these people kept coming up in droves. I was getting anxious just to get up and get it over with, but I had to wait out the wave of well-wishers and whatnot. This did give me time to think about what I was going to say, plan it out, etc. Then the minister gave me the signal, I replied back, and got up to speak.
Silence.
That's right. Crickets chirping. It was probably only about three seconds of dead air (no pun intended, but it was kind of funny as I re-read, so I elected to keep it, at least in the director's cut), but I felt like I was probably in need of a fresh shave after that rain delay. I hadn't exactly forgotten what I was planning to say, but it wasn't coming out. I honestly don't remember what I had planned, but it was probably some bullshit I thought would be appropriate to say, and my conscience got the better of me. These people want to hear what I have to say, what I'm feeling, what I'm thinking?
You got it, fuckers.
I let forth a rambling stream of consciousness so utterly incomprehensible that people literally didn't know what to say to me afterwards. I honestly have no idea what I said; I know it was honest, I know it was real, but I also know it was probably similar to the verbalization of one of the Unabomber's letters, just scattershot, incoherent drivel. Some of it was funny, some was serious, all of it was out of left field. Part of me wants to listen to it again, but part of me likes the novelty of it being a one-and-done soliloquy. People have since asked me what I meant about one particular line or the other, and the best I can do is try and guess what I was probably thinking/saying at the time.
After the funeral, graveside service, and after-party gathering, I know it probably wasn't the most responsible thing I could do, but instead of staying with family, I went out and got abusively drunk with my friends. Who says whiskey isn't the solution to problems? My friends knew I didn't want to talk about it; I wanted to watch sports, drink and bullshit about whatever inanities came to mind. It was great. And my tab was like $13 (I might look that up later, just for posterity's sake). Win.
As is often said, the hardest times after a loss are when you're out of distractions. I'm pretty good at keeping myself distracted (another problem solved by whiskey), but not when I'm sleeping. I probably had dreams of Dad every two nights out of three, and I hated it. I knew it was just ever more likely that I'd lose control of what I guess are my emotions, and we couldn't have that, now could we? So I'd stay up until the small hours of the morning as much as I could, delaying the inevitable. It wasn't that I was trying to forget about Dad, but I wanted to reminisce on my own schedule, my terms.
The intense, attention-stealing episodes of reflection finally started tapering off after a few months. They didn't exactly go away, just slowly started approaching zero. I guess part of it was that I could never really say goodbye.
I remember the last time I talked to Dad, about two weeks or so before he died. He called me from his cell phone from the Hospice center one weekend afternoon, and before I picked it up, I knew what this conversation was going to be. I went out on the patio, and we had one of the best conversations we'd had since I was probably in high school. I hadn't heard him that coherent and lucid in at least seven years, maybe longer. A small part of me wonders if this wasn't a hallucination of some sort; I might need to verify the phone records. He knew his time was up. He wanted me to promise him I wouldn't come back to Texas until after he was gone; there was nothing I could do, my mom and brother were there, and there was no reason for me to put my life on hold any longer. I did, and I still feel like a cowardly piece of shit for it. We mended our fences, said our goodbyes, and that was it. And that's all I have to say about that.
There's a reason I don't like talking about things like this. I know my emotions will likely go all supernova, and I prefer to avoid that. Hiding from them has worked for the past thirty years, so why fix something that isn't broken? At least this way, I can exercise some semblance of control. I do sometimes feel bad that I'm such a piss-poor emotional sounding board, but there's not much I can do about it. So, one year later, how am I doing?
I'm doing better than he is.
Love you, Dad. Miss you.
