My Dad
September is a strange month for my family. My son was born in September. I got married in September. My grandfather died in September and now my father has died in September. In the wake of my father’s death, my grandmother turned 89. September has turned into a reminder of how life and death twist and bend one another, where the line between the two both linger and fade completely.
Four years ago, I brought life into this world and manically laughed as my child was placed on my chest. For a moment I was a god. A few weeks ago, I watched my father’s heart monitor slide to zero, helpless to stop it.
Before writing this, I was working on a non-fiction piece about villains. How those characters can be the most interesting because humans and what we make are terrifying, and then, a mile or less down the road, there was a school shooting. That half-written piece became impossible to work on. A few days later, my dad was in the ER, and then he was gone.
How do you write about grief when you are in the middle of it? How do you separate and analyze the pieces to fit them together? I took a book with me over the weekend when my dad was in the ICU. Three days after he’d passed, I couldn’t pick it back up and declared I didn’t want to finish it. Nor could I tell you anything that happened in the pages.
Last weekend was his Celebration of Life and I couldn’t bring myself to talk about him, and the truth is/was I was uncomfortable. Each person has their own narrative for the man who raised me, because he was their friend, cousin, brother-in-law. Our perspectives are different, but here is what I would like to share:
My dad chuckled. I can hear it. It isn’t a loud or a deep chuckle, but it ends with him saying, “Awll right” in an accent so thick and slow it sounds like if syrup could make a noise. He would then smile. I don’t know how but this smile was like he was pretending to be shy, but he wanted you to know he was pretending. It was endearing.
My dad introduced me to Star Trek TNG, SF Horror movies, and 80s/90s action movies. He ate these shows up and I sat transfixed asking, “What happens next?” I hear other authors talk about how their parents had hundreds of novels hanging around. I had The Terminator and Nightmare on Elms Street. He let me stay up to watch the X-Files, making me promise that if I started to have bad dreams I would stop. It was the two of us who watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer together.
My dad was quiet. The opposite of my mother. He was the middle child of five kids and had an even temper. When he spoke, others would stop to listen—and often he would say one thing to make someone think, as if he was a sage passing out wisdom. It was never condescending and always a little random.
People asked me if he was mean because of his silence. I always laughed at this. He could be stern. As a child he could embody the face of disappointment that shattered my composure but he was never mean or cruel. And his quiet didn’t last at home. Even when I moved out, he would call me and we would talk about work and life.
He was a diesal mechanic. The garage of a mechanic is full of the scents of oil, grease, and fuel. They cling to the skin and hair. These are scents I will miss along with the scent of the soap he used to wash it away in the garage sink before coming inside.
He said, “Mm Hm,” to almost everything. This was a common phrase he picked up from his mother. He had two Mm Hm’s, one meant he was thinking about what you’d just said. The other meant he wasn’t listening.
I spent my life identifying with him because he was the family member that gave the same thoughtfulness to the future and the “what ifs” that hover around all of us. For example, when I was nine or ten, we watched a ghost show—I asked him if he believed in ghosts, he said that, maybe it wasn’t ghosts. “What if it’s time folding in on itself?” he asked me.
Once when he was frustrated, he shook his head and said, “Maybe we are a snow globe on God’s shelf he shakes up every now and then.” I wondered how many snow globes God might own.
Most people are going to remember him for his work, or rather how much he worked, even when he was at home. The man liked a project. He would have hundreds of them around and outside of the house. Each involving his hands.
As a teenager, when I was involved in Art and Drama, he told me in high school he was in a play. This was said with a special kind of pride. He showed me drawings he’d done as a teenager. I remember the illustration of a squirrel. If I can find it, I will have it framed.
He was pushed into adulthood too young.
At nine, my mom explained puberty. Not understanding what would happen to my body I broke into hysterical tears. She lost patience and had my dad sit down and talk to me. He didn’t laugh at my fear or anger. He listened and explained the best he could. I hope I would handle it as he did in that situation.
He built things and believed in being a good person.
When I got married, he said, “Remember that money is just a number on a piece of paper.” He was sentimental in the best way. And when we had our father/daughter dance I held back the best kind of tears.
All these things could never be enough to give you the story of my father. In his obituary I wrote, hardworking, quiet, and easy-going. My mom said it was the perfect three words. She’s not wrong, but to describe someone in three words is skimming over so many different parts of what makes us, us. We are different people to one another, a sibling, a partner, a parent, a grandparent, a friend, the list goes on.
I will remember him as the man who helped foster and nurture my curiosity and made sure that I had the space and tools as a girl and young woman to figure out what I wanted out of life.
If you have made it this far, thank you for reading about my dad. I don’t think there is a takeaway other than death sucks. It rips our loved ones from us and while everything living might die, it doesn’t mean its easy. It doesn’t mean we won’t grieve those that aren’t with us tomorrow. <3
