"There is no right way to grieve, and you have to let people grieve in the way that they can. One of the things that happens to everyone who is grief-stricken, who has lost someone, is there comes a time when everyone else just wants you to get over it, but of course you don't get over it. You get stronger; you try and live on; you endure; you change; but you don't get over it. You carry it with you."
My dad would have turned 84 today. My mom, my brother and I all agree he would hate that number. He wanted no part of senior citizenship, his behavior far more childlike in its wonder and enthusiasm. A Depression baby whose parents divorced leading to his older brother living with his father and he with his maternal grandmother, he was materially poor but spiritually rich, and forever making up for the lost opportunities of his childhood. He made sure my brother and I got to experience everything he did and much of what he didn't. Then, he did so right along with us.
He became a father in his late thirties, learned to ski at 40, began playing the organ by number and color around the same time. When I was young he awoke us on a Saturday morning to the sounds of Broadway, John Denver or marching bands blasted throughout the house as loud as could be. Sometimes he played reveille on the trumpet he used during his service in the Korean War. He entertained us with his banjo or by bursting into a spontaneous lindy or jitter bug with my mother. He was always sketching with pastels and charcoals, favoring lighthouse and sea scenes.
He water skied with his glasses on and nicknamed me "Mouth" until I hit junior high when it changed to "Smart Ass". He even bought me a white T-shirt with a rainbowed Smart Ass emblazoned front and center. I haven't been called Smart Ass in a long time and I miss it. In every letter I received at Smith College, he enclosed one dollar. When I bought my house in Mystic, we did it and the painting together. Now I can't bear to think of moving because much of the design and many of my plants are cuttings from his. He is my living landscape.
It's been ten years since my dad died, exactly one month before his 74th birthday. So bereft was I, I could not even phone friends to tell them. To utter the words "My dad died" aloud was a permanence I could not cement. Not for a very long time.
And since my dad died, there are times when I feel so incredibly alone. In our family unit, I feel most like him: witty, silly, artistic, and kind. It's hard to fly solo. I have eaten my way through my grief, I have worked my way through my grief, I have isolated my way through my grief. It still hits me when I least expect it or on a day like today when I do. I still can't conceive of a world without my dad in it but here we are, ten years later, in that world. He would be angry if I wallowed, so full of life even up to the end, "I had a good life, a great life, and a far longer life than I expected. Make me proud."
I have, Dad. I have.
Happy Birthday.
