With dead dad dreams and sisterly relationships.
I had a dead dad dream last night. We were at his funeral, my sisters and I all sitting on the sofa in the front row, when he sat up in his coffin and opened his eyes and started talking. "But Dad... you've been dead for two months," I told him. He smiled at us, and his mustache looked so lively, not all over-groomed like it had been, and told us that he loved and missed us. I've never really had a dream tell me so obviously what I wanted to hear.
I've been thinking of him a lot lately. About to pick up the phone to call, and then realizing I'm going to have to share with someone else. Someone recently commented that I don't talk a lot about myself; I think it's because my life is relatively drama-free. But it's also because I keep my thoughts close. My sisters are hearing a lot more of it, because I don't have my dad to call.
My sisters and I have been varying stages of close all of our lives. For the most part Bridget and Caitlin have teamed up, and I've been away from the picture. Bridget spent a lot of time surrogate-momming Caitlin, so it's understandable that they are closer and share most of the inside jokes, which theoretically I should be okay with since I am the one who decided to move away. Moving away is in and of itself a selfish action. It's difficult to bitch about missing milestones in your loved ones' lives when they all live in a 100-mile radius, and you ran 2,000 miles away.
If I had known my dad was in the last three months of his life, would I have stayed here? There was so much more that I wanted to know. I'll never be able to ask my grandmother for her pancake recipe, or third-degree my pops on his first fiancee.
While there's a lot of things I don't know, there are a lot of things that my sisters and I uncovered about Dad when we spent a day cleaning his room. Sorting through his dressers was easy in comparison to all of the paper hoarded in his desk and his closet. It was an awkward job since none of us wanted to sit anywhere. The bed was silently a no-go, since Dad had been alive in it not even four days before. The floor was limited, and lord knows what was hiding in that shag carpeting. The man had kept everything from the past 15 years in his room. Past-due bills, unopened bills, cards from me and my sisters, doctor's bills, appeals to Social Security, his answers to the state bar when he was getting his license revoked. Everything was there, 15 years of his struggles and failures. I can't imagine sitting in my room, smoking a cigarette and watching a game, knowing that all of that was around my head.
The biggest revelation was the handwritten account of his last 15 years. While most of the facts were known, a couple were new, and just knowing how difficult it must have been to write it all out. He didn't infuse it with the how-does-this-make-me-feel, simply addressing everything in a matter-of-fact nature. It almost made it even more difficult. I think that's the difference between my parents: my mother is always at the ready to get histrionic about the most minute of events, when major things have overturned my dad's life and he never bitched about any of it. We kind of just talked about the inconsequential stuff and when I did have something major to say, we made light of it, and he never judged my mishaps and bad decisions.
I miss him. A lot.
We read this, and I re-read it whenever I'm feeling really down: "I will say here, because I haven't told them enough that I am intensely proud of my daughters, and their various accomplishments, and know that each will develop into valuable and contributing members of their communities and professions. In my mind, this is the legacy anyone who has dedicated his adult life to public service, the law and government could leave."
I've been thinking of him a lot lately. About to pick up the phone to call, and then realizing I'm going to have to share with someone else. Someone recently commented that I don't talk a lot about myself; I think it's because my life is relatively drama-free. But it's also because I keep my thoughts close. My sisters are hearing a lot more of it, because I don't have my dad to call.
My sisters and I have been varying stages of close all of our lives. For the most part Bridget and Caitlin have teamed up, and I've been away from the picture. Bridget spent a lot of time surrogate-momming Caitlin, so it's understandable that they are closer and share most of the inside jokes, which theoretically I should be okay with since I am the one who decided to move away. Moving away is in and of itself a selfish action. It's difficult to bitch about missing milestones in your loved ones' lives when they all live in a 100-mile radius, and you ran 2,000 miles away.
If I had known my dad was in the last three months of his life, would I have stayed here? There was so much more that I wanted to know. I'll never be able to ask my grandmother for her pancake recipe, or third-degree my pops on his first fiancee.
While there's a lot of things I don't know, there are a lot of things that my sisters and I uncovered about Dad when we spent a day cleaning his room. Sorting through his dressers was easy in comparison to all of the paper hoarded in his desk and his closet. It was an awkward job since none of us wanted to sit anywhere. The bed was silently a no-go, since Dad had been alive in it not even four days before. The floor was limited, and lord knows what was hiding in that shag carpeting. The man had kept everything from the past 15 years in his room. Past-due bills, unopened bills, cards from me and my sisters, doctor's bills, appeals to Social Security, his answers to the state bar when he was getting his license revoked. Everything was there, 15 years of his struggles and failures. I can't imagine sitting in my room, smoking a cigarette and watching a game, knowing that all of that was around my head.
The biggest revelation was the handwritten account of his last 15 years. While most of the facts were known, a couple were new, and just knowing how difficult it must have been to write it all out. He didn't infuse it with the how-does-this-make-me-feel, simply addressing everything in a matter-of-fact nature. It almost made it even more difficult. I think that's the difference between my parents: my mother is always at the ready to get histrionic about the most minute of events, when major things have overturned my dad's life and he never bitched about any of it. We kind of just talked about the inconsequential stuff and when I did have something major to say, we made light of it, and he never judged my mishaps and bad decisions.
I miss him. A lot.
We read this, and I re-read it whenever I'm feeling really down: "I will say here, because I haven't told them enough that I am intensely proud of my daughters, and their various accomplishments, and know that each will develop into valuable and contributing members of their communities and professions. In my mind, this is the legacy anyone who has dedicated his adult life to public service, the law and government could leave."