This is not the longer essay I’m writing on this. This is just sort of an interim explanation.
More like a small garden in which to display some first thoughts.
“My dad died.”
It’s a phrase that should mean something. It’s a tree that should have deep roots, that
should tear the soil in the action of saying it. There’s a social transaction in the phrase.
The sayer can utter it and the receiver acknowledges it and tries to suss out
the okayness of the sayer. Death has weight and we pass the heft of it back and
forth between us as if sharing it will lessen it, will lighten what we can’t
hold onto. And yet-
The phrase is empty for me. And I wish it wasn’t.
My mom and dad split when I was 3. He was an off and on again presence in my
life. A birthday present sender, a
forced phone conversation. Every few
years I saw him in real life. The
acceleration of adolescence put him at a disadvantage. By the time he tried to get to know the new
me, I was already onto the next phase. It was a losing battle. Neither
he nor I were ever great at correspondence or really thinking of people outside
of ourselves.
The last time we talked was an accidental misdial on my
phone six years ago. The last time we
saw each other was a decade ago. By
then, Candace and I were adults and we’d let go of the father concept. I’m sure he wanted something. But he was either too proud to say it or too
hopeless it could be recovered. Either
way, I was over it.
And then he died. On
July 31st, my sister texted me that she had to talk. I was worried that something was wrong with
her new baby. I called her. She said, “Jimmy died.” That’s how far from father he was. Candace gave up on calling him ‘dad’ years
ago. called him that still mostly
because it was some anchor I’d left out in some harbor I thought I’d revisit
someday. But someday is gone now.
I didn’t even know how old he was until I saw his obituary
today. I scribbled in a fake birthdate
for him on my marriage certificate. Probably means Val and I aren’t really married. Oops.
I didn’t know if he was living alone or remarried. I didn’t know he was in bad health. I didn’t know he had diabetes. I didn’t know if he had friends. I didn’t know if he was happy. If no one had told me he’d died, I wouldn’t have wondered if he was alive or not. It might have been decades before I found out.
We were that far apart. And now we are much farther.
I’m not sad that he’s dead exactly. I didn’t feel anything when my sister told
me. I’m more sad for the
possibilities. For what we missed. The absence of a father is a robbery I’ve
dealt with my whole life. A missing
piece of my psyche maybe. It feels
metaphorically like a cliff behind my right foot, a place where I could never
rely on footing.
Even this chance has been taken from me. I don’t get to feel this experience
deeply. I don’t get to miss someone and
count the days until we meet again on the other side. I’m sure we will. But it won’t be a reunion. It’ll be like running into your professor at
the grocery store. Maybe we’ll become
friends then. I’m a friendly guy. I don’t hold grudges. Another thing he never got to learn.
I'm, in all sense of the word,
'okay'. At some point, I'll say to someone, when they ask about my dad,
that he's dead. And they'll feel sympathy for me, assuming that we were
close, that I felt great pain at his loss and I'll have to decide whether or
not to correct them. And I probably won't. I'll probably just let
them believe I've suffered life's inevitable tragedy. And that it felt
and looked just like theirs.
But it didn’t. And I regret that. For me and my sister.
Safe journeys, dad.
- Shamus
