The last time I saw my dad, it was three weeks before he would die. Leaving my apartment to make the long drive back from Michigan to Texas, my neighbor had cornered him to look at her bloody eye. The inside of her cornea had filled up with blood like some godawful horror movie eye where she hit herself with a broomstick while dusting out her storage unit. "Do you think I'm in danger?" she asked him. "Should I go to the hospital?" People were forever asking my dad questions like this -- he had that stable, comforting look. The week before she'd shown him her gums. They were infected from the denture adhesive she'd used after her teeth fell out from a medication she'd been prescribed for another affliction. Dear Lord, the woman did not have good luck! My neighbor was my dad's age, in her fifties, but seemed as if she were of a different generation entirely, maybe more like Marie, the ninety-five year old above me who was routinely leaving her stove on and burning her clothes. I used to joke that her son had to escape from the nursing home he was in to come see her. Marie had style, though, and would yell, chic, chic out her window when she liked the outfits I wore to work.
In a few weeks, I'd scheduled to move out of that building that I referred to as The Misery for reasons that should now be all too obvious. My dad would be leaving as well, for whatever lies behind this earthly veil. He spent his last two weeks on a business trip which made me think of when I was a little girl. My parents wouldn't tell me when my dad was going to be away because I'd get too upset and stop eating entirely. And when he was away, I wouldn't eat, my own little hunger strike. He'd often bring back medically-themed gifts to assuage my sadness at his absence. The irony now being I imagine him away on a business trip all the time, not gone entirely, but out of range, as a comfort rather than a misery, perspective being everything and nothing all at the same time.
Michelle's Spell of the Day
"Still I have not got used to it. /My mind can still form to that chair him/ whom no chair holds." Mary Karr
Cocktail Hour
Drinking documentary suggestion: Shot In The Dark
Benedictions and Maledictions
Happy Father's Day!
20 comments:
Here we go--into the wild blue yonder! Happy Father's Day!
Fly high, Michelle!
Ditto, Michelle!
Arf! Arf!
Doh, it's my day, doh!
Jeez, get the net, Bart.
He's using it to catch JLCGULL!
They came and got me out of study hall to tell me my Dad had died. I remember knowing right away that something very bad had happened when they told me to come to the office. But for some reason I was convinced it was something bad that happened to my mom. I'd seen him that morning, though, working in the garden, and had told him I loved him before I got on the bus for school
i cant even comment the way that i want because it makes me too sad
Do you believe in Karma, Michelle? I know you do -- and in the last few years Karma's been biting you in the butt or, more accurately, in your fragile psyche. Your mother, your father, Hank .... payback's a bitch,isn't it? You can move out of The Misery, but Misery will always be your companion. You showed no mercy, so no mercy will be shown to you. Have a nice Father's Day! LOL!
this is a very sad, but beautiful, post. it's generous of you to share these things on your blog.
Like Cheri, I don't even know what to write. And I don't want to know what to be able to write. There are no words.
Sir Dark Knight go back to the muck you rose from.2
Loss of one you love is not really loss is it? They do move out of your reach but then they do always leave you with something, the love they had for you.
Love, honest and real love can never leave you.Even though the person who gave it you can't give you more. They left you with all they had to give, be it great or small.
Love is a part of the eternal that mortal man carries, a smart person like it sounds your father is, gave you great amounts of it. That is what you celebrate today. His love for you and your sister.
Be at peace my young friend, as your father is at peace, sleeping comfortably without care or worry. He, as does your mother, sleeps comfortably together with their ancestors waiting for the day you and them will all be reunited in light and greater love than you have ever known.
These are of the things I know as absolute truth.
I remember that day too. Funny when people push around words like karma when talking about natural occurance, and then, only when they might think that it would somehow suit their purposes. Too bad that all that is said is also true of the one who typed it. I only love, so now I reap love. The one currently present who's reaping all the lonely in their life planted it themselves beyond a doubt. They won't even say their name since they know that we will already have heard of the legened of this special biggest loser, of his desperation, attempted coercion and bitterness.
The workings of karma are obvious to the astute observer.
Exactly Susan.
Mark, so true. That too made me sad enough to cry.
Eric, that's the way that we can only strive to live, and although we sometimes fall short of that goal, we keep trying anyways.
Dark Knight, I've been reading these boards since they began and can verify your true identity as Eric Bachman, Eric313, Iago to those caught in your nasty ass drug web unawares, evil motherfucker to your parole officer. You can't fool everybody with your two-faced hate-love comments, and you cannot pass off the blame to jlcgull any more.
and I love you too, hidden
darkness that reaks of odius
self loathing. Drugs and parole officers? The devil you say. Actually, your URL
is my
plaything.
I hope your boss isn't a woman
you spineless internet flamer
yours to anonymuosly flame
always and forever,
Eric Bachman
I'm sorry about your dad Michelle.
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