This is a letter about my father.
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To dad:
It's Easter and the day after my birthday; it is one of those days that I realize you are dead. Not missing, not lost, not coming back. Somehow it feels like you are all of those things and none of them at the same time. You can't be gone gone. Even though you have been. You won't ever be anything else again.
I won't see you again, here, but it feels like we'll meet again. Won't we? I'm not really sure. I can't decide if I hope we will or if everything will just go quiet. To sleep.
To everyone else:
I realize these are bleak thoughts for my second day of my 22nd year. It'll probably be like this for many years, though. Maybe always. At least I didn't cry on my actual birthday this year; just the days before and after. Some funny universal mercy, maybe.
Last year, I was very drunk, and somehow, suddenly, me and all my friends were singing "Tonight, You Belong to Me." I was doing my makeup, in between bars. I wasn't thinking, didn't realize, and I don't know who the hell else would have started singing it, so it must have been me. But I don't remember doing it. I just remember suddenly snapping back into reality and hearing the song swirling everywhere around me, all these friends of mine singing and humming together. And then I cried, drunk and inconsolable.
It's a year later from then, and now when I'm taking care of the one-month-old (one of two children I nanny), I sing that song to him. It doesn't make me sad anymore. Instead, other things do. It's something I'm still getting used to: the change in what pushes me over the edge into remembering. A lot of the time I don't remember, don't think about it. But today, I did. Two days ago, I did. And the day before that, when my little sister turned 19, I also did.
Most of the time I can't see his face vividly. I can't picture it clearly, even if I try. My mind has a sort of cunning (if often unwanted) talent for hiding things away from me. What my dad looked like, how he spoke. I can't imagine him being here, speaking or playing piano. I can't imagine his face. It's jarring when I want to be able to do this, but when I don't, it's a wicked sort of blessing. It would hurt me, so it's stowed away.
But when I want it -- ah. When I wish I could imagine him, fabricate the look of him smiling or the feeling of holding his hand. The day he died, I held his hand a lot. It was cold and stiff, but it was his, so I held it. For hours and hours. I remember thinking how tiny it felt. And now, can I feel it?
Of course I can't. I can't even make-believe it. I don't feel either good or bad about it, I guess. I don't feel much about it at all. You'd think for someone whose dad has been dead for a year and two months, I'd be able to think and feel about it. Usually, though, it isn't that easy. Not even fucking close.
It makes me very angry how little I talk about it. How the hell do you start? What would I say? "My dad is dead, and I feel nothing about it usually, but I want to talk about it anyway," or, "I feel vaguely upset about my dead father, but I can't process or think about it, can't put it into words, does that work for you?" It doesn't work. Not for me, and probably not for anyone else. I was at a bar once with a friend, and we were about to leave. She told me, I don't remember what led to this, but she told me, "Your dad would be so proud."
Of course I cried, a little (not a lot), and then we both left. That's the biggest talk I've ever really had about it. Or at least the one that felt most like it actually did something. I don't know what I want. I don't know if I even really do want to talk about it. What I really want is please-can-my-dad-come-back-now-it's-been-long-enough-with-him-gone-and-I-can't-can't-can't-keep-not-having-him-here, and how exactly do I ask for that, when there's nothing anyone can do for me about it?
I don't want to make anyone feel bad, or incapable of helping. Maybe people could help, but I can't -- I can't help people help me. I need something fucking magical to happen, someone to have a stroke of genius and give me what I need without me asking. Even then, though, I'd probably get pissed off. Or, I should say, it would probably make me incredibly upset before I could actually accept it as helpful.
So instead, it's the day after my birthday, and it's Easter, and the closest thing I've got to God is my dead dad, and he won't come back. He is gone.