The Kind of Man it Feels Good to be Around

Today is one of those anniversaries I usually refuse to celebrate. I try not to even remember them. Sometimes I succeed. Today I woke up and checked the analytics for https://www.gigarage.org/ and saw today's date in a linear graph next to all the days before. It's been twenty-two years since Daddy died.

I have written before of the eras of life and how I mark them with big events. This was one of the first of such events. "Before Daddy got sick" and "before Daddy died" and "right after Ansley was born" and "after Gabe was born" and "before I met Jay" and the list gets longer and longer with the ticking tally marks of the years. They're not all sad, just look at the births of my babies. They tend to just be these profound moments of change for me. I hold onto the good ones like the anchors they are. These moments ground me and hold me and remind me of the beauty that change and love can bring.

And that's why I tend to try to let the bad ones go. Life is so filled with beautiful things to sit and dwell too hard on the things that hurt. Life is too full of things that hurt to let yourself go mad sitting in them.

I've missed him more than I thought I could lately. I wonder what he'd think about this little job of mine. He made me promise on his death bed to "make something of yourself." He would say things like that. Never tried to tell me what to do, exactly, just sort of framing my view through his eyes. Even then, he believed in me and believed in my ability to find my own path and to be successful in it.

He thought I was something special. And every person in the world needs that as they grow. I wish I'd had it longer. I wish I had it now. I got a hug yesterday that helped. I wanted so much to cry and just didn't. I don't know what happens with these tears lately. The important ones just don't come.

He had this way of looking at things that wasn't common in men then. I say it's still not exactly common, but it's certainly less rare and more accepted. He was so tender. He was a gentle man. You could see in his dark forest green and gold eyes when something affected him. I saw that same look yesterday and I still am not sure exactly what caused it.

I think his way taught me to look harder at people than just what's on the surface. It wasn't as if he never spoke, he just didn't talk too much. And the two times he'd really talk were when he had a funny one-liner and when he had something deeply important. With that first one, he'd look down for a second and when his face lifted again, he'd have a grin and you'd know then to hold on because you are about to have a good laugh. With the other, his eyes would narrow just the tiniest bit. Almost like he was thinking about the subject at hand and trying to get his mind around it framed in his own life experiences. Then he'd knock your socks off. He was deeply intelligent, but he also wasn't what anyone would ever call "bookish." I suppose if you didn't know him, you might think he was a little slow. He'd fix that for you real quick.

My family collected me from school. Just me, not the others. I don't know why no one thought of my baby brother. Me, my older middle sister, my mom, his best friend, and me, right at his knee because Mama had one hand and Dan had the other. I didn't know the word for what was happening then. It's called "agonal breathing" and it means that someone is actively dying. I thought when he stopped breathing the first time, that was it. No. It goes on for a few minutes, too long between breaths, slowing, until it stops.

Shortly after, my baby brother came home. He went straight to see Daddy. I stopped him about halfway between the door and the bedroom. I don't remember what words I used. That was the first time I delivered that news to someone so important to them. I wish I could say it was the only time. It never gets easier. Watching a face as a heart breaks is the most painful thing I've ever witnessed.

I think that the day he died was that moment in life that I realized life isn't romantic. I mean that in the literary sense of romanticism. It doesn't always rain or storm when someone dies. The idea that the whole universe could revolve around your own heart is a level of hubris I'm not sure anyone should carry into adulthood. I have been and will always be a soft heart. I think sometimes they look the same. 

It was  a beautiful day. While funeral home were collecting what was left of my father, I went outside and sat on the stone wall overlooking the driveway and the garden, unturned that year. The sun was filtering down through the fresh new leaves. By that time, it was early evening. I remember moments like that one with perfect clarity sometimes.

Today is a lot like that day, warm and sunny and clear. Days like this as reminders that we are not the center of the world. But they're also reminders that we are in the world and that we matter even if the difference is unnoticeable.

My heart still breaks with missing him sometimes. I don't talk too much about it because it's not really helpful. I would much rather talk about the things from his life than how it ended. For the same reason as Jay. His life was something to be there for, his death was undramatic and no more special than a billion others, but still, that's what people cling to.

I wish I could see him. I wish I could tell him I love him. I wish I could hug him, tucked under his arm like he would do. I wish we could sit side by side like we did for countless hours, quietly, comfortably. That warm glow isn't absent from my life right now, but it's still not my Daddy. I don't know exactly what it is. Maybe things will be clearer one day. But I will never ever stop missing him,