Mar 17 2022
Remembering
Dad and Me
Dad’s birthday this year found me feeling sad. Some years, I remember all the happy times, and others, I feel sad or even angry at how long he’s been gone and how senseless his death was. Sometimes I think that he was spared the indignities of getting old and losing his intellectual abilities, which he prized so highly, or his physical abilities, and having to be vulnerable and helpless in front of others, whether they were us or paid help. That’s about the only positive thing I have been able to come up with in the nearly 21 years he has been gone, and it’s not much.
I soon learned after Dad died that most fathers were not like mine, and that most people were not close to their fathers. It made me feel even more alienated and alone in my grief, since nearly everyone I knew still had their fathers and most of them didn’t really want to hang out with them. Whereas for me, my trips to England to visit Dad were the high point of my life, and no one has ever known me or loved me like him. We knew all the worst things about each other and we loved each other anyway. That is a rare gift, and one I am grateful for when I am not mourning the loss of it. I don’t know if it’s worse to have it and lose it, or never have it at all.
I do know that I love my father as much now as when he was alive, and that I will miss him until I follow him into the darkness. I hope he’s wrong and he is there to greet me, reaching out to hug me on arrival, like he used to do at the airport.
A YEAR AGO: Dad’s 90th birthday.
TEN YEARS AGO: Dad’s 81st birthday.
FIFTEEN YEARS AGO: Remembering Dad on his birthday.
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