I existed. I woke up. I
guess there was a funeral. I’m assuming they buried him. The last two weeks
must have been there, but I didn’t remember it. My dad is dead, and all I feel
is his absence. Everyone talked, the pastor preached, I wore a suit, then I ate
a bagel, but I didn’t move. I sat while everything changed around me. Now that
everything is said and done, the traditions finished, I just am.
My mom and I are sitting in a car.
We’re donating some clothes at the local clothes drop. My sister is getting rid
of some old stuff and cleaning out her room.
“I’m going to have to go back to
work again,” my mom says. “But don’t you worry about any of that. We will be
just fine. God always provides. You’ll see. When Grandma was a kid her dad
died….”
- She keeps talking, but I let it
reside as a humming in my ear, while my mind wanders elsewhere.
“You know he’s really not worried,”
my dad says to my mom.
I almost jump right out
of my seat.
“You okay?” my mom asks.
“Yeah I’m fine.” I say. “Just
thought I heard something.”
My mom continues talking while all
I hear is the humming in my ear.
My dad chuckles. “We all have different ways
of coping with things. Your mother just likes to talk.”
I realize I’m the only one that can
hear him, but he’s there. My dad is in the backseat, commenting on my mom’s
ramblings like he always does; or did. But, in another second, he disappears. Am
I crazy? Have I reached my breaking point? I don’t really care. I get to see my
dad.
I wake up early the next morning.
I’m always the first one up now. It used to be my dad. I’m groggy, half asleep
in the bathroom brushing my teeth. I spit, rinse, and shut the sink off. I hear
a soft “clink, clink, clink” in the kitchen. It’s the sound of a spoon in a
coffee cup. I make my way into the kitchen, still rubbing the sleep from my
eyes. My dad is sitting at the table, arms folded and head slouched, mixing his
coffee slowly while watching the dark, thick, liquid twirl in the cup. He’s a
real morning person, which is something we share. It’s still dark out. I pour
myself a cup and sit across the table from him.
“Want some eggs?” He asks.
“Sure,” I reply.
I wake up slow, while he seems to
be fully alive right when his feet hit the floor. He enjoys making us breakfast
and lifting us out of the fog of morning. He goes to the fridge and grabs the
eggs, butter, and cheese. He brings the frying pan out of the cupboard and
turns the burner on. He scoops some butter out of the tub and I listen to it
sizzle on the pan. Two eggs are cracked and placed in the pan. He cracks the
yolks and lets it sizzle, then gets some bread. He’s making me an egg sandwich
instead, no dialogue is needed, he knows they are my favorite.
“Morning,” my sister says, opening
the fridge and getting out some juice.
I look to her and look back, and he
is gone; the stove with nothing cooking and all the ingredients back in their
place.
“Morning,” I say after a long
pause.
Days pass into weeks and weeks into
months. The earth still revolves and the world changes around me. I’m back in
school, playing volleyball, and bussing at a diner on the weekends. He’s always
there. I see him. I feel him. I hear him.
****
It’s been a year and a half, I
realize as I sit on my couch at home alone. I don’t know what triggered it, but
I am sobbing. I can’t control it. I’m rocking back and forth with tears
streaming down my cheeks. After a while, the tears stop coming, but I’m still
sobbing. Something in my soul twists and chokes me.
My mom comes home. She opens the
door and starts to say something— then she sees me. She drops her groceries,
runs over and embraces me.
“What’s wrong, honey, what’s wrong?”
“He’s gone! Don’t you see?! He’s
gone and he’s not coming back! He works his whole damn life and it means
nothing! Nothing!” I yell. “He can’t see his kids get married, he can’t take
that trip to Yellowstone, he’ll never see his grandchildren, nothing!”
“I know, I know, honey,” she whispers
reassuringly as I sob some more on her shoulder.
After a while, though, I calm down.
She leaves to make a call. I lie there still, curled up in a ball with a
blanket she put over me.
That’s when I see him for the last
time.
He walks around the couch, grabs a
pillow, and leans against the lazy boy, lying on the floor, watching TV with
me. He always lies on the floor instead of in a chair. I never understood it.
It’s a commercial break, and he grabs me by the wrist playfully, like he would
when we were kids. He used to wrestle around with us during commercial breaks.
Usually dads come home at night from a long
day of work, sit in the lazy boy, and watch TV. Not my dad. As I got older,
though, I stopped horsing around with him. I was the guy coming home from a
long day of work, not wanting to do anything. But, he never stopped trying. A
commercial break would come up and he would grab me by the foot or wrist.
“Dad, stop it.” I would say.
He would continue to drag me off
the couch.
“No seriously stop it. I had a
really long day. Can’t I just sit here and not be bothered?”
He would then retreat, never saying
a word.
But this time, I let him drag me
off the couch. We wrestle for a little while. I sit on his, stomach as he lay
down. He looks into my eyes. He sees the sorrow.
“What’s wrong, son?” He says,
looking concerned.
“I’m afraid I won’t see you
anymore.”
He smiles the kind of smile you see
when a parent is so proud of you, they smile, but their eyes well up in tears.
You can tell you’ve reached their soul.
My mom walks in, and, just as
quickly as he appeared, he’s gone forever.
****
As
the time passes, I still think of him, but I don’t see him. I think he would
have liked it this way, I realize; he will live on forever, through us. That’s
enough for me.
