In Which I Am Very Emo About a Dead Guy

Time heals all wounds.  How many times have I read that?  And it sucks, because I haven’t found that to be true.  Dad died fourteen years ago, and every ache, every single pain of that loss, is still just as raw and burning as ever. 

I don’t get it.  I just don’t.  You’re supposed to get over it and move on, the pain fading to a dull ache and eventually being replaced by a gentle nostalgic fondness.  Well, that hasn’t happened for me.  In fact, just yesterday, during the drive home, grief hit me so hard that breathing hurt. Jars of Clay’s first album started playing on the ipod.  That was one of the first and only bands that we ever liked together.   ‘Worlds Apart’ started playing and I was taken back to the late night when we drove to the grocery store in DC and that song came on the radio.  Finding out we both liked it.  That memory is a sweet one.

Couple days ago, I was in the thrift store and among the many junk items from someone’s garage was a stack of early 90’s baseball cards.  On a whim, I skimmed through them and bought four different Ruben Sierra cards.  He was an outfielder who used to play for the Texas Rangers.  Now, I don’t know anything about sports, really, and I don’t know if he ever was a player of note, but for some reason I latched onto him as my favorite player.  I think about it a lot, because I don’t know why I thought he was the greatest.  And the one person in all the world who could has been dead for the past 14 years.  That hurts. 

And the dreams.   Once, well before he got sick, I dreamed that he’d died.  I remember frantically digging in the backyard of the Jackson Center house for something he’d buried for me.  I cried and dug and dug, but never found anything.  It was horrible.

Now, the dreams are different.  His death is an absolute in the dreams.  He’s dead, but he comes back, sometimes years later.  A few times, he remembered being dead, a few times he didn’t, and frequently he’s different somehow.  An infinite sadness weighs on him and I don’t know why.

Each time I wake it up it hurts anew. And I hate it, because I still don’t know how to grieve for this man.  A few more birthdays, and he’ll have been gone from my life longer than he was a part of it.  That terrifies me.   Even now, as I write these words, my vision is blurring.

Dead longer than he was my dad.  A few years after that, and maybe it’ll be like he never existed.  Maybe that’s why I can’t grieve.  I can’t let him fade or it’s like he was never there.  If I get over the single most impactful event of my life, will he disappear?

What exacerbates the problem is that I have no one here who knew him.  I feel like I’m the only one who holds his memory, and that precious fragile treasure is all that remains.  It’s like, if I’m the only one who remembers him, was he real?  Or just a thirty year delusion?

Him being dead, it feels wrong somehow.  Like something went awry with reality, and now I’m stuck in this dark world with no father.  Maybe I’m crazy.

I don’t know.  Anytime I try to write about Dad I get all jumbled up and start to ramble. 

My dad is dead.  The pain hasn’t gone away.  That’s about the long and short of it.