It's been a while since I've last posted--things have been incredibly busy. I made sure to carve out some time to write a post today. I won't be calling attention to this post on Facebook or anything like that, because if others haven't noticed, I don't want to upset anyone by reminding them of the significance of this date.
It's been one year since my father died.
This date has been looming large in my head for at least a week, maybe two. It's so different from other times when I've lost people I love--some of my grandparents and friends. I've never remembered those dates--I have a general sense of when it happened, but I never paid attention to the actual date. For some reason, I can't forget this one. In that way, I'm like so many other people.
Unlike a lot of people, however, in the course of this year, I never forgot that my father had died. You know how people who have had similar losses say things like, "I'll think about how I need to buy a gift for him, and then I remember that he's gone and I can't," or "I almost called her up to tell her about this movie and then I remembered that she was gone"? I never have that experience. I never forget that he's gone. I think it is because talking to my father was often a sort of, well, special occasion, really. We didn't talk every day, or even every week. It was something for which I planned: "I'll give Dad a call, and tell him about _______".
Thus, I do not forget he is gone. Instead, I think things like, "Dad would really have liked ________".
When I celebrated Dad's birthday, I was surprised that it wasn't really a negative experience. I was sad that I couldn't call him to wish him a happy birthday, and I missed him--but overall, celebrating his birthday was nice, comforting. It turns out that the hardest time for me is around Father's Day. I had to blink back tears as I looked for Father's Day cards for Michael (on behalf of Elizabeth). I was wholly unprepared for that, because it had never been a very big holiday--nothing like Thanksgiving or Christmas--and nothing so personal as his birthday. But the absence of a father on Father's Day reminds a child more of the primary role he played in his/her life--so it is a day that is almost as much about me as it is about him. I can no longer participate in that day the way I once did, and it brought the reality of his death very much to the forefront of my mind.
I miss being able to tell him about Elizabeth. I miss hearing him laugh over her antics and having him tell me how much I deserve her more troublesome behavior because of the trials I put him through when I was her age.
I hope this day isn't hard for the others who were also close to him. I'm not so sad that I can't enjoy things on this day, and for that I am thankful. I almost didn't write anything about it, but I'd had these thoughts drumming through my head all week, and I couldn't let it go by without writing something. Sometimes writing really does feel like a way to de-clutter my mind. If I don't write the thoughts, they just keep tumbling, ricocheting, forming and re-forming in different ways and combinations. Now that these thoughts are written, they'll stay out.
For a year, at least.