So I’m just going to cry all day? That’s the Father’s Day plan. That isn’t a question or doubt. No doubt this day will be nearly too hard. I don’t have a father alive to tell anymore. Or a father I really want to tell more than him. Of course I’ve still said it. To the universe. So it’s said and I can try to imagine he still heard. I don’t have a grave stone or place to say things. He didn’t want that. He wanted used back up. Not wasted and buried. Nothing left to leave behind. But memories.
I am relieved he left this way. I don’t want a place to go and talk to him. I talk to him in all places right now and will forever talk to him in all places. He still talks to me in my ways I am me. He still talks to me through me. Right? It’s a question today not something I think I believe yet. I’m saying and writing the words so I can read them back and see them written so my brain says. It’s written. It’s there. It’s you. Believe.
I bought a coffee for the person behind me. I always do. I always end up spending a lot on coffee. Today I pictured it was a lady who also lost her dad and didn’t have a dad too. She needed an extra shot of espresso to deal today too. I don’t even care if I were to find out she actually has a dad still. Maybe the coffee is for him? Maybe it’s for her son who is a new dad? Maybe it’s hers and her dad is in the nursing home and she can’t see him right now because of the coronavirus. It doesn’t matter. All things lead to a dad today. Someone’s else’s dad.
I sent a message to my coworker who is a dad. He will love it. He has a new baby girl who keeps him and his wife on their toes. They are a new booming little family I admire. He was my first thought this morning when I needed someone to say this to. He is a man child. Like my dad was. Like a man who still acts like a 12 year old boy. But also is our best manager. I don’t ever want him to grow up to his age. Stay 12. Like my dad.
I didn’t think I had anything on my mind this morning. I didn’t sleep much. I don’t sleep much. I dreamt of motley crew. Just people with hair everywhere I was that looked like motley crew. I woke certain i wouldn’t be able to think of my dad. Almost certain I wouldn’t even wake. Until I read about the day he died. Intentionally I took myself to this story. I don’t currently want to replay it. I didn’t even read the whole thing. Just the sentence that he died. I knew he did. I didn’t need reminded. What I need reminded of today is that he is alive in ways I can’t yet grasp. I will. I grasp. I grasp at everything. I am a master grasper. I really hold on.
Except with pull ups. I can’t think of a reason to need to do pull-ups. Or even sit ups and push ups. I am strong enough for the things I need to do and want to do. Nothing I desire requires more core strength unless it’s specifically pull ups or sit ups or push ups. They require even more than core. I’m not evenly strong enough to just be whipping out exercises. I’m not a pe teacher or in training for anything other than regular life things.
If I were to be hanging on a ledge I would fall. Unless offered help back up. That’s just how I would go. I couldn’t pull myself back up from hanging. I stay away from ledges for this reason.
I didn’t think anything other than my dad gone could be on my mind today. So nothing is. Until now. Now everything is. He didn’t like these “days”. I didn’t like them. Days we demand people think of others. Like all days like this. We just think of them when we think of them. Sometimes I was mad at my dad on Father’s Day. Or mad at my kids dad. I don’t want to tell them anything. I still love them but didn’t like them that day.
Fireworks are cancelled everywhere. There will be no celebration of independence with fire in the sky. It is single handed my favorite holiday. I am independent. I love that this day is what it’s about. I love to pack up and take blankets and food and sit and wait for this show. I love the crowds that day. I love letting the kids just kind of roll down hills and eat off the ground, and carry light up sticks waiting for dark to come. I love their hands sticky from watermelon. I love the national anthem and the American flag. The grand finale. The music from all kinds of people. I have cried at displays before. It’s moving. I am very patriotic this day. I don’t boast it with clothes in American colors and prints and really show it. It’s a personal feeling of freedom. It’s just my day I like to celebrate.
I can go back in time. To 1776 and feel the freedom. I am a time traveler. In my mind. It’s my favorite thing about anxiety. It can leave the moment and go back to hundreds of years ago and try to think of that moment. Insert myself in history. I can bolt forward and think of history not yet in the making. I can also get right back to the moment. You can’t tell when I’m here or there.
I’m sitting in my parking lot for work. I don’t work today. But I don’t know what to do today but work. Except I can’t get out of my car to go work. I want fireworks today. My dad is free. He is. He is dead yes but free of pain and suffering. He should be celebrated with fireworks and music and food. But my sister has coronavirus and my other sister has checked out. My mom is too sad to see this a day of his freedom and his independence from struggle. She believes she failed somehow and didn’t properly help him not struggle in the end. She couldn’t be there due to rules. She was always there. In her mind he suffered alone.
In my mind he didn’t. He suffered never alone. He knew how to be there alone. I knew he knew how to be there alone because I learned from him that being alone is not suffering. It’s dealing. I’m my best company. He was his best company. We were often just our own best company. But he was my moms best company. She doesn’t know how to be her own yet. She may never.
My grandma died of a broken heart. My grandpa died and just kind of slowly so did she. Without him who was she? She didn’t want to find out. I felt relief for her when she was gone. Not for me but for her. She went to be with who she only knew how to be with. I worry my mom will do this. I don’t know how to help her help herself. I am too new at knowing how to help me help myself. Yet have recent experience so it’s fresh in my mind.
I am independent and free of pain and suffering. So is my dad. This is a day to celebrate. I don’t feel pain and suffering about him not being here today. Because I wrote that he is here. Just not in the way he once was. I can’t have a fireworks display or even celebrate in the way I wish we could but I can make a plan to. He needs a day of celebration. We didn’t get to have one. Not a funeral. A day to celebrate his life not his death. His freedom from pain.
Aspenleaf 