Tomorrow is always an odd and uncomfortable day filled with memories, love, and sadness. I would have been my dads birthday...but that is why this is always a little confusing. Maybe confusing isn't the right word - yet maybe it is. Tonight I sat with my "dad" the man that has been my dad for the past 22 years and had the most wonderful conversation about soup - he and I LOVE soup. But tomorrow is my dad's birthday, but not soup dad. This dad below...the one wearing the strawberry.
This photo is one of my favorites. He was my daddy. He is my daddy. Yet he left us 23 years ago. They told him he wouldn't live to be 50 and he didn't. He passed in August, he would have turned 50 in October. October 21. Laugh at me if you must but when I see that date I can't help but think about the thing I figured out when I was little - maybe even shortly after he died. That he and I would have the same birthday if you flipped the year around making December the first month and January the last month. If you do the math you can figure out my birthday...oooh fancy.
But that isn't why I write these words - I am not even sure why I write these words that I am writing as I am supposed to be working out, that is why I left soup dad. However, as I was driving home my fingers and heart ached to expel all that was in them. Loss is a curious thing. One I don't try to understand. I have friends that are beginning to lose their parents now that we are adults, and my heart aches for them. And I get it on a certain level - but then I don't. I lost my dad when I was in elementary school. He has never met any of his grandchildren. He didn't see my sisters get married. He missed all of my graduations. He has been gone for more of my life now than he was a part of.
I suppose when I think about it what troubles me the most...is that I don't remember.
I don't remember how he smelled.
I don't remember the sound of his voice.
I don't remember his laugh.
I don't remember much about him physically...except his cold hands. My hands are less than cold, always. And if they are it is rare. They are usually warm...awkwardly so. They are not clammy just warm...
But this isn't about my hands.
This is about him.
I miss him.
I miss him every day.
But loss is a little like this...at least for me.
Loss is like the ocean.
As we stand on the sandy shore
we see the ocean we know it is there.
Some days it laps at our toes - reminding us its there.
Some days it is warm
Some days it is frigid
Some days we splash among the waves and laugh
Some days we sit back and watch the storm stir up the waves
Some days the tide comes rushing in pulling us under
Today I stand in the sand and it warm, but the waves crash almost to my knees, then they settle, rise, settle, and rise.
I am tempted to go and dig in the tide pools.
I am tempted to sit back and watch.
The older I get the stranger these days feel and become - with each passing year of my Daddy gone, it is another year with my Soup Dad...our relationship grows and changes. It is wonderful and I am thankful each and every day for the love and support he has given me. But that doesn't take away the loss.
I wish I had the words today - I wish I had the words every day. I wish I could sit and talk with my Daddy about food, adventure, bucket lists. The silly things. The things we never seem to ask our parents or even care about when we are younger. And now that chance is gone. This is why the conundrum of when we lose our parents is what it is. Is it harder to lose a parent as a child before you have had the chance to make all the memories and never will or is it harder when you are an adult because you have made those memories. You have shared the time together. I think that there is no right answer - because loss is loss. Losing a parent is hard. It hurts. A part of you falls to the wind.
As we fall to the wind where does that piece of you go?
Does it go and nestle itself among the stars?
Does it rest on the changing leaves of the trees?
Does is float among the waves?
Does it go to the place where dreams are made?
Does it go anywhere at all or does it merely dissipate and cease to be?
I could ask a million questions?
I could ask why?
I could ask what becomes of us in the end?
But I won't.
It is what it is.
Loss is inevitable.
Birthdays are inevitable as well.
As are the memories of the birthdays shared with our lost one.
Happy Birthday Dad. Tomorrow you would be 73. Tomorrow I might eat some cake. I will watch the Ducks. I will laugh with friends. I will celebrate for you. I might cry. I might fall apart a little bit. And that is ok too.
I wish I didn't have to write these words. I wish I didn't have to admit that I don't remember. I am not sure if that makes me awful or if it merely makes me a human who lost her father early. I wish I could remember. But I remember you, I remember our family, I remember the things that made us the most special family in the world. I remember the things that made us, us. I love you and I miss you. But I am thankful that I have had the opportunity to feel love from not just one father but two. And although I missed out on the memories with you I have been blessed with the opportunity to make them with Soup Dad.
Cheers Dad. Happy Birthday! xoxo