Where I’m From
I think a lot about where I'm from... what makes a person the parents that raise them or the ones that birth them?
This year, actually just last week, marked the 17th anniversary of my Pops' death. I've now been alive as long without him as I was alive with him and it really gets to me. I remember reading a novel once when a main character contemplated leaving her husband and she hesitated because if she married anyone else her mother would never meet him.
See, Pops raised me with my Mems. They started as Mimi and Papa but then street cred forced me to shorten it up. While my mother was always in the peripheral of my life, clashing with Mems, finding reasons to ignore my existance, there was no Dad around peripheral or full time.
Pops was it. He drove me to school in the mornings and packed my lunches. One day I realized as we climbed into the truck I hadn't bothered to brush my hair at all and he said he hadn't noticed and thought that's what I wanted it to look like.
We watched cartoons and ate vanilla wafers with peanut butter. We played Merle Haggard and Conway Twitty in the car.
Once I was singing in my room and dancing around, he ran in and opened the door, "Is everything okay?" He'd thought I was screaming in pain, not singing "Chicago."
I wrote about it on my Facebook page, with photos of baby Kate and Pops.
"I think about Pops all the time.
Sometimes I think about the parts of my life he won't be there for- graduating high school, college, getting married, getting diagnosed with ITP, finding a career.
I think about how Eli would love Pops and climb in his lap for cartoons like I used to do. I think of how he'd love Bella and Molly and feed them vanilla wafers with peanut butter no matter if I said no.
How he'd feel about the current political climate, how he'd think my eating habits were insane. How he'd be proud I bought a car on my own. How it'd be nice to sit and have a beer with him like I do with Mems now.
How my life would be different if he was still here. What would my relationship with Mems be like? Did mutual grief strengthen our bond or would we be like this no matter what?
Then I stop thinking. I put on Merle Haggard, have a a cry and keep going."
Are a little over a dozen years enough to make a mark on a person as they keep growing? Will his mark wear off? I worry about it. But I think the worry helps keeps the marks there.
Mems and I talked about it the other night, after she saw my post. How no one but she and I really get the relationship he and I had or the one that she and I have. Her kids resent it, my friends find it confusing.
Even with her our relationship changed without him. We became confidants, best friends and partners in our grief fueled world. She regrets that to some extent now, thinks I'm too tied to Tulsa because of her. I don't. I'm thankful for that strengthened bond all the time. But I wonder what would happen if we hadn't lost him at the time when we did, what could have changed?
Does something so special get diminished when only a select few remember it? How can I take the mark he left on me and pass it on to those who'll never meet him?
When I think about where I'm from I think about sitting in the kitchen, watching Pops and Mems cook dinner and drink a beer and I play. I think about road trips cross country with them taking turns driving and me asking a million questions and they always kept their cool.
I'm from the best of them and the worst of them. And I'm desperately trying to hold on to every moment of it.
This year, actually just last week, marked the 17th anniversary of my Pops' death. I've now been alive as long without him as I was alive with him and it really gets to me. I remember reading a novel once when a main character contemplated leaving her husband and she hesitated because if she married anyone else her mother would never meet him.
See, Pops raised me with my Mems. They started as Mimi and Papa but then street cred forced me to shorten it up. While my mother was always in the peripheral of my life, clashing with Mems, finding reasons to ignore my existance, there was no Dad around peripheral or full time.
Pops was it. He drove me to school in the mornings and packed my lunches. One day I realized as we climbed into the truck I hadn't bothered to brush my hair at all and he said he hadn't noticed and thought that's what I wanted it to look like.
We watched cartoons and ate vanilla wafers with peanut butter. We played Merle Haggard and Conway Twitty in the car.
Once I was singing in my room and dancing around, he ran in and opened the door, "Is everything okay?" He'd thought I was screaming in pain, not singing "Chicago."
I wrote about it on my Facebook page, with photos of baby Kate and Pops.
"I think about Pops all the time.
Sometimes I think about the parts of my life he won't be there for- graduating high school, college, getting married, getting diagnosed with ITP, finding a career.
I think about how Eli would love Pops and climb in his lap for cartoons like I used to do. I think of how he'd love Bella and Molly and feed them vanilla wafers with peanut butter no matter if I said no.
How he'd feel about the current political climate, how he'd think my eating habits were insane. How he'd be proud I bought a car on my own. How it'd be nice to sit and have a beer with him like I do with Mems now.
How my life would be different if he was still here. What would my relationship with Mems be like? Did mutual grief strengthen our bond or would we be like this no matter what?
Then I stop thinking. I put on Merle Haggard, have a a cry and keep going."
Are a little over a dozen years enough to make a mark on a person as they keep growing? Will his mark wear off? I worry about it. But I think the worry helps keeps the marks there.
Mems and I talked about it the other night, after she saw my post. How no one but she and I really get the relationship he and I had or the one that she and I have. Her kids resent it, my friends find it confusing.
Even with her our relationship changed without him. We became confidants, best friends and partners in our grief fueled world. She regrets that to some extent now, thinks I'm too tied to Tulsa because of her. I don't. I'm thankful for that strengthened bond all the time. But I wonder what would happen if we hadn't lost him at the time when we did, what could have changed?
Does something so special get diminished when only a select few remember it? How can I take the mark he left on me and pass it on to those who'll never meet him?
When I think about where I'm from I think about sitting in the kitchen, watching Pops and Mems cook dinner and drink a beer and I play. I think about road trips cross country with them taking turns driving and me asking a million questions and they always kept their cool.
I'm from the best of them and the worst of them. And I'm desperately trying to hold on to every moment of it.