12 Years
I want her to know him. I just don't know how. So I talked to my mom and my husband and we are going to try and turn March 14 into a day to remember him. Bring out pictures and tell stories and hope that she gets some inkling of who he was.
This is hard because its getting harder to remember him. 12 years is a long time. My 20s have come and gone. I have become an adult in his absence. I have been married and had a child and moved to a different city and almost lost my sister... and... So much. So much life without him. Yet. Everyday is influence by the life I had with him. The idea of him or the ideas he presented to me. The people he introduced me to, Joseph Campbell at 12... Jung by 14... and more. The books I have that bear his writing. The reviews of shows he starred in when he was my age. The sensitivity to sound as my perceived hearing loss deepens. The eyes of my daughter. The fondness for salty treats and coffee and philosophy. My adamant feminism in response to his dealing with masculine roles. The fact that my mother says I may be the only woman he ever truly respected as a PERSON, and that our relationship may have healed something in him that enabled him to move on. That's a heavy one.
I miss him so much. If I think about it too much its an overwhelming tide of sadness at what I lost. What he would have been like. I also question what my life would be like if he were still around. Would I be here? Would Faelyn? How come countless other people have strokes and survive? These are the hard questions that live deep in my memory and heart and mind and surface when the ides grow near.
On March 11, 1996 my father had a fatal stroke. On March 13, 1996 we know his soul left his body. On March 14, 1996 he was declared deceased. On March 17 we held a wake where I sang with my sisters f
I am still thinking of writing a one-woman show about this. About expunging the questions from the recesses. But it scares the crap out of me. Even my last major work, tinted with these questions, the ghost of my father in it, made my brain and pen recoil for digging them up. Even now I brush away tears and say.... But there is so much here.
Love you daddy.
This is hard because its getting harder to remember him. 12 years is a long time. My 20s have come and gone. I have become an adult in his absence. I have been married and had a child and moved to a different city and almost lost my sister... and... So much. So much life without him. Yet. Everyday is influence by the life I had with him. The idea of him or the ideas he presented to me. The people he introduced me to, Joseph Campbell at 12... Jung by 14... and more. The books I have that bear his writing. The reviews of shows he starred in when he was my age. The sensitivity to sound as my perceived hearing loss deepens. The eyes of my daughter. The fondness for salty treats and coffee and philosophy. My adamant feminism in response to his dealing with masculine roles. The fact that my mother says I may be the only woman he ever truly respected as a PERSON, and that our relationship may have healed something in him that enabled him to move on. That's a heavy one.
I miss him so much. If I think about it too much its an overwhelming tide of sadness at what I lost. What he would have been like. I also question what my life would be like if he were still around. Would I be here? Would Faelyn? How come countless other people have strokes and survive? These are the hard questions that live deep in my memory and heart and mind and surface when the ides grow near.
On March 11, 1996 my father had a fatal stroke. On March 13, 1996 we know his soul left his body. On March 14, 1996 he was declared deceased. On March 17 we held a wake where I sang with my sisters f
I am still thinking of writing a one-woman show about this. About expunging the questions from the recesses. But it scares the crap out of me. Even my last major work, tinted with these questions, the ghost of my father in it, made my brain and pen recoil for digging them up. Even now I brush away tears and say.... But there is so much here.
Love you daddy.