The Dead Dads Club

My father died six years ago. Six years and four days ago, exactly. It took me a very long time to grieve his death. He had pancreatic cancer, a type that is particularly aggressive, and almost never forgiving. He was originally given 6 - 9 months to live, and ended up living 18 months. He was blessed with that extra time, as were we. I feel as though I grieved him being gone even before he was gone. I knew that some day soon, he would not be here with me any longer. I knew that he wasn't going to make it to my senior prom, my wedding, or the day that I brought home my first child. I had to deal with those thoughts even before he was gone. And in my 17 year old way, I tried.

I still believe that I preferred knowing the cancer would eventually take him away from us. It gave me time to deal with the fact that I would come home one evening and his light by his chair in the living room would not be on, and he would not be sitting in it reading or watching the Discovery channel. I knew that sometime soon, I would walk into the kitchen for a glass of water in the night, and he would no longer be there, listening to James Taylor until he grew sleepy.

And that's pretty much how it happened. Those little moments after his death, when I would walk into the kitchen at midnight expecting him to be there, brought a subtle grief with them. Did they accumulate into those stages of grief that you hear about? No. I feel as though I didn't really grieve his death until years later. Something as silly as my first breakup brought that on. I didn't even like the boy that much, but I suppose I just really wanted my dad there to console me, or beat him up, I don't know which. Either would have been nice.

I still miss him, but six years later, the missing is different. I would love to have him here working with Alan and I on the house. He knew a lot more about this stuff than we do. I recently read about Roseanne Cash's book, Composed, on a friend's blog. My friend's brother recently passed away, and she had read the book and had this to say about it. "...Most of the memoir seems to be about Johnny Cash and growing up in reaction to him. The things Rosanne chose to do or not to do mostly seem based on a desire to either get away from or get back to what her father did. I guess that’s the way it is with most of us and our parents, only most of us don’t have to do it under a spotlight.

There was one particular passage towards the end of the book that I read several times. She is talking about her reaction to the death of her father and she writes,

“You begin to realize that everyone has a tragedy, and that if he doesn’t, he will. You recognize how much is hidden behind the small courtesies and civilities of everyday existence. Deep sorrow and traces of great loss run through everyone’s lives, and yet they let others step into the elevator first, wave them ahead in a line of traffic, smile and greet their children and inquire about their lives, and never let on for a second that they, too, have lain awake at night in longing and regret, that they, too, have cried until it seemed impossible that one person could hold so many tears, that they, too keep a picture of someone locked in their heart and bring it out in quiet, solitary moments to caress and remember. Loss is the great unifier, the terrible club to which we all eventually belong.”

I feel this everyday. I think of my dad every day. Although the grieving process is done, and I dealt with it long ago, I still miss him like any daughter would. But I feel that what Roseanne Cash has written here is so true. I feel it every day.