Gone

Sometimes I think it's particularly cruel that we lost my Dad at Christmas, his life fading away in the hospital bed surrounded by sparkling lights and festive round ornaments, doctors whose ties hung loose with red and green cheer.  

Sometimes I think it's particularly cruel how fast we lost him. One day hearing his deep chuckle reverberate across the warmly lit booth of a steakhouse, firelight dancing around as he savored the last drop of his martini, and the next moment death, swift and fierce and unexpected.

But really it's just that we lost him at all.  That we lose people, and they are gone, and they are still gone, and they will always be gone.  

And three years later I can see his watery blue eyes and freshly pressed shirt, silver orbs engraved with his initials holding shirtsleeves together.  I can hear his carefully considered tone, the way he measures his words, and we spend our days pretending death doesn't exist, that it won't come for us.  We make a pact with the world to live in active denial, shutting out reality at every opportunity.

But it does, and it will, and it's there, and he is not.  He is gone.

Missing you

Hey Dad,

I haven't been writing to you lately, but it's not because I haven't been thinking about you.  If you want to know the truth, I still think about you all the time.  Constantly.  Things just seem to be getting worse instead of better.  Everyone uses 6 months as a very rough framework for grieving - the first six months are the worst, they say.  But you know what?  We're into the second six months now, it's been 7 and a half months since you died, and I would say right now is the worst.  Right now, and yesterday, and the day before that and that and that.  The cocoon of numbness that shock provides is completely gone and I'm just raw and exposed to the elements.  And the elements hurt, the heat hurts, the air hurts, everything hurts.

I think I've entered into the angry stage of grieving, because I feel angry all the time.  I picture punching people in the face when I'm out on the street.  I am so sorry -- I know you would absolutely not approve of that, but it's not like I'm going around actually doing it, it's just what I feel like doing.  I feel like smashing glass against walls screaming, and then screaming more, and breaking down into a pool of mush and just crying.  Just giving up.

If we ever broke a glass in the house on Thompson Street, you acted as if toxic chemicals had been released into the atmosphere.  You'd immediately banish everyone from the room, sweep, vacuum, and then insist that shoes were worn at all times in case any tiny little slivers of glass were left lurking, waiting to kill us.  If I smashed a glass now, I'd probably just let it lie.  I feel listless and sad and I just don't want to try.  I want to run away and not face things and not acknowledge your death at all.  So, denial, then?  Anger and denial together, is that how the stages work?

You know when you feel yourself doing the wrong thing, the unhealthy thing, the non-productive thing?  And you can acknowledge it, but you can't change it.  Or you don't want to change it.  Or you just don't care.  You are always always always going to be gone, aren't you?

a

Splish Splash

Somewhat incongruously, you really loved water parks. Adventure-type parks in general, but especially water parks. 

When we were kids you and Mom took us to Six Flags, and then some corollary of it whose name I can't think of. It was a giant water park, and I remember your infectious enthusiasm for it. We went down gigantic slides, and I remember going through some underground tunnel slide and cannon-balling out into a (FREEZING) pond. I slapped into the water and it was so, so painful and so cold, I remember that sensation vividly many years later. 

Then, in 1991, a water park called Splish Splash opened, about 45 minutes from our house. I was what - 14 - and Amy a couple years younger, but you immediately asked us both if we wanted to go. Of course we did. I am not sure, but I don't think Mom came? 

Regardless, it was so much cleaner and nicer than the park in NJ. That said, I remember some kind of log flume, and some tubing, and I guess some slides, but that was it. 

It was my birthday on Friday day, and all I wanted to do was go to the beach. Which I'm glad to say I did. On Friday, Saturday, and today, Sunday. We had a big fun BBQ, and Meredith and her kids came up to visit. Peggy and Jim came, and Mom and Marc, and Ellen and Bert. I missed you though. Meredith came through in the goofy animal card department, but I didn't get one from you for the first time in a long time. 

But your spirit lived on, in all my swimming hijinks this weekend. I am so glad that I shared my passion for water with you. 

x

M

Tomatoes

They are growing really well this year, Dad. I have high hopes. The herb garden is going wild, and I still have peaches growing on my tree (praying for them to get ripe and be delicious).

Summer feels pretty tough without you. We went to Port Jeff for Father's Day and had a BBQ. It was hard to get the BBQ started, it took Mom, Marc, and Idriss, a group effort. Mom said she really missed you - it doesn't exactly feel like summer without you manning the cooking efforts on the deck.

The pool isn't open - is it possible that I had my last swim in it without knowing it was my last swim, as you didn't know either? The closed pool is imbued with way too much power and symbolism in my mind. So bleak and sad to see.

Golfers are out in full force, and yesterday I took a detour because of traffic and drove by a crowded course, then had to pull over because it was so upsetting for you to not be out there, starting the holiday weekend with nine holes. Or something like that.

 I don't know Dad. It's been six months. I don't miss you any less. And every sunny day I resent that you aren't here to enjoy it, too. Not fair, not fair, not fair, is the refrain in my mind.

Also, I got laid off last week. I have 90 days to work still, and I'm fine. I wish I could speak with you though, about my future plans. Right now I'm focused on getting some ripe tomatoes and peaches. I just wish I could share them with you.

Love M

Happy father's day...

At the risk of sounding like a millennial twit, I can't even...

Recently I saw this list that F. Scott Fitzgerald sent to his daughter Scottie, at the end of a letter, when she was 11. I think you would have liked it, so I'm pasting it below. 

Love M

Things to worry about:

Worry about courage
Worry about cleanliness
Worry about efficiency
Worry about horsemanship

Things not to worry about: 

Don’t worry about popular opinion
Don’t worry about dolls
Don’t worry about the past
Don’t worry about the future
Don’t worry about growing up
Don’t worry about anybody getting ahead of you
Don’t worry about triumph
Don’t worry about failure unless it comes through your own fault
Don’t worry about mosquitoes
Don’t worry about flies
Don’t worry about insects in general
Don’t worry about parents
Don’t worry about boys
Don’t worry about disappointments
Don’t worry about pleasures
Don’t worry about satisfactions

Things to think about: 

What am I really aiming at? 
How good am I really in comparison to my contemporaries in regard to: 

(a) Scholarship
(b) Do I really understand about people and am I able to get along with them? 
(c) Am I trying to make my body a useful instrument or am I neglecting it? 

With dearest love,

Daddy

Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

I miss you always.  I wish you were grilling us burgers on the deck today.  I wish, I wish.

I love you so much,

Amy

Monthly flowers

You really loved lots of flowers, and as I've written before we loved chatting about what's happening in your garden or in mine. 

One thing that I'm starting to slowly understand, that I didn't before, is how fleeting many flowers are in terms of how long they bloom, and how cyclical they are. 

So I'm waiting forever for the peonies, but they weren't here for long :-(

But at the same time, I'm starting to understand the order they come in. 

April: crocuses.

May: tulips, peonies, fruit trees.

June: glorious roses, salvia, hydrangea, foxglove, wild flowers. 

July: ? I don't know. It's next month. I think Phlox, sunflowers, dahlias, echinacea? 

This is obviously not an exhaustive list. But I find it comforting, somehow, to know that everyone who gardens or cares about gardening is waxing poetic in June about wild roses. I know you would have been showing off the rose bushes, too. 

Love M

Beach days

You know how much I love the beach. It was a beautiful weekend, sunny and hot, and I swam for the last three days in a row.

Don't worry, I slathered myself in sunscreen. 

I just remembered today, when I was irritating Idriss with my incessant demands that he put sunblock on, how annoying you were about it growing up. 

You used to take us to the ocean beach on the south shore a few times a summer. We'd get there and be SOOOOOO EXCITED - we were little kids on a big sandy beach with big waves in front of us. Much to our chagrin though, when we arrived you would make us pile on the sunblock and then wait a full TWENTY MINUTES before getting wet, so it could "absorb" into our skin.

Dad, that was torture. Twenty minutes to a hot, sweaty, excited kid on the beach may as well be a year. If you had a digital watch at the time, I wouldn't have put it past you to time it exactly. That was so frustrating! I just so vividly remember dying with impatience to get into the water. 

Just like I always am now! Some things never change. 

xxxxxx

M

Dog encyclopedia

You were a man who liked facts, information. Not that context and shades of grey weren't of interest, but as a general rule you liked precision. I remember in Junior High School that my teacher told us that the US entered WW2 in 1942, and you were horrified. You also corrected that detail quickly: December (8th?), 1941.

So obviously, growing up we had a lot of reference books. A whole set of World Book encyclopedias, a set of children's encyclopedias (I used them to look up glossy animal photos, of course), law textbooks, dictionaries, etc.

One funny addition to that canon was a dog encyclopedia. I am not sure where you got it, or when exactly, but any time you heard about a new breed, or if we were wondering about a certain type of dog's temperament, out came the book.

Just a couple of years ago, there was a puppy that I saw frequently out on walks in Tribeca, near my office. I can't remember the name of the breed for the life of me, but it was absurdly cute, even-tempered, and calm, and I tried to convince you and mom to get one. Out came the book again - but it wasn't in there! It's a new breed, and they come from Canada. I remember distinctly feeling sad for you that your book wasn't up to snuff. I need to look for this book next time I visit Mom.

xx
M

The Biggest Sky

It's my last night in New Mexico.  I'm supposed to be keeping a blog about my trip, but I'm not really, not yet.  Because it turns out that my trip is really about you, isn't it?  It's hard to separate anything happening right now from the grief that is still so fresh and so raw.  So acute.  The grief that hits every time I'm alone.

Today I passed through some of the most breathtaking scenery I've ever encountered, it was like driving within a giant snow-globe in a Swiss alpine village with a Costa Rican town nestled inside of the massive domed sky.  It seems that beautiful things make me cry lately; they make me think of you.  And so it came about that I was sobbing while driving along this ribbon road in the bluest of all blue skies.  So many times, I've had to look around in a full 360 -- how can there be that much sky?  Is it really here?  You would know, you would tell me about the sky.

I went to dinner at a lovely restaurant just outside of Taos, it looked like an old farmhouse, and the details of the room I ate in were just perfect -- bright white walls and old lighting fixtures and a grey painted barn-like floor.  It was gentle and welcoming and peaceful and bright.  You would have loved it there.

The way the candle light flickered bothered me a little, but not too badly, and I thought of that last dinner I had with you at the restaurant in Port Jeff -- Old Field.  There were flickering candles and a fire going there, and I had to change my seat twice to try and situate myself so that the flashing and flickering didn't set off a storm in my head.  I started thinking of that dinner, and you, and my waitress was a lovely girl and you would have asked her name and where she was from, and all of the sudden I was overcome.

I was about to become that woman sitting alone in a lovely restaurant bursting into tears, making the other patrons uncomfortable.  I couldn't get you out of my head, and I thought well maybe he didn't die, maybe he just left us for another family and he is going to walk into this restaurant right now with his other wife and his other kids, and I could see you there, in a short-sleeved pink polo shirt tucked into khakis, and I could hear you, hear your voice and your laugh, and see you smile, and you were there, Dad, you were just there.  And I wouldn't have been mad, if it was just that you had left us for another family, I would have been so relieved.

I realized the flood gates were opening and I really had to fight back the tears, I stared at the white wall and I bit my lip and I forced myself to think of anything but you.  But, I couldn't.  I needed to pay the check and get the hell out of there.  It felt like you died right there and then, in that moment, for the very first time.

After paying, I ran out to parking lot, got into my rented car and burst into tears.  Sitting there sobbing in the car and blowing my nose into rough paper napkins, I closed my eyes and was transported back to the parking lot of the hospital in December, sitting there sobbing in my car, snot dripping everywhere.

When I finally pulled myself together, I started driving again.  I just wanted to move, to go anywhere and everywhere.  And the sky was starting to light on fire, and it was just endless sky everywhere you looked, and I wanted to chase the setting sun, and chase the light and the clouds and the burning colors.

So I kept driving, and the turns I made were based on following the light and wanting to drive into the perfection in the sky.  And I wound up on these tiny deserted dirt roads, and everywhere there was sky.  And blue here, and giant fluffy white clouds there, and burning orange circles there, and purple mountains over there.  And I just started talking to you.  I could feel you in that sky, Dad, and I knew you were there with me and I knew you loved it and appreciated it just as much as I did.  You know I'm not much for spirituality.  I don't believe in an afterlife or anything like that...  but you were there with me today, you were there in that sky.  You just were.  I love you so much.

amy

Bleak times

Dad,

I am pretty sure I just said goodbye to Eliot for the last time. I had to hold him still while Marc gave him intravenous fluids. He will barely eat and drink, and it is heartbreaking, and I think Marc's heart is already broken.

After I held him for the fluids, Idriss and I had drive back to Sea Cliff. But I was so upset that I went and sat on the swing on the front porch. I wasn't super confident that it wouldn't break, given how rusty the chains are, but you aren't around to fix it, are you...

Anyway, it was a beautiful, soft evening with a robust and strange Santa Ana-like breeze, and as I sat on the swing with tears rolling down my face, I sought a way to pull myself together, to find a way to be brave for Marc.

I've been watching Longmire lately, which you loved, and I thought of the Native American spiritual ceremonies on the show. So I tried to imagine your spirit in the intense wind flowing every which way. I imagined your strength coming to me, through the breeze, and it helped. I said goodbye to Marc, to Eliot, to Mom, and we left. I know if you were here, you would be a rock throughout - so I'm trying the best I can to be that for Marc, but I'm not you, so there's that.

I love you Dad.

Five long months...

Today is five months, Dad. 

You are everywhere lately. My peach tree is growing actual peaches, and I know that would have just tickled you pink. Every time we discuss how the hydrangea are growing in, what the tomatoes are doing, how the mint is taking over the yard, I know how you would have liked to be a part of that discussion. Bartleby is still my constant gardening assistant and companion, and he loves to lie amongst the strawberries and lettuces (our arugula is growing like a weed!) just after I water. 

Last week we spent the weekend at Mom's, we went to Bloomin Haus and got tons of hibiscus and impatiens, and planted all the planters on the deck. We used the marble chips you got to facilitate drainage in the planters, but where were you, Dad, cutting the circles of screen for extra draining guarantees? We skipped that step - none of us could bear to do it. 

Lately I've been seeing Allium around, blooming in many neighbors' yards. I remember we used to have a few and you were crazy about them; I'm going to plant some bulbs in the fall for you. I have a running list of things to plant that I think you would like, including some fancy tulips, columbine, and so on. 

It's been a mostly warm and lovely May, and it would have been an incredible golf month. My train ride takes me by Glen Head country club daily and I always think of you as a skinny teenager struggling to lug around people's golf clubs. 

The world is definitely still falling apart, Dad, so no changes there. But our world is also a hot mess. Eliot is dying, and so is Mom's friend Paula, and it is a lot of pain and grief all at once. I know you would remind us that life isn't fair as a means of getting through this brutal period, but at the same time, I am not sure that we need life to be rubbing it in quite so much. 

On the plus side, next week is our five year anniversary. We had talked in the fall about having a party, but without you that doesn't feel right. So Idriss and I are going upstate for the long weekend, to the deep countryside, and I am so looking forward to time to relax and reflect and be away from people. 

I love you so much Dad. I miss you so, so much today and always. Love M

Purple Mountain Majesty

I was shooting out in Southern Utah this week, down south of Moab in the desert of Indian Creek.  The scenery was breathtaking, but the shoot was stressful and busy and I didn't have much time to myself.  We were filming a Land Rover commercial, and our "hero" vehicle was a gleaming white Land Rover Discovery.

Because brands are very specific about the way their product is filmed, the car had to be cleaned many times over our three day shoot.  One time, we were all set up and ready to film, but we were waiting on the car to have its bath.  I walked over to JP, the car wrangler (who you would have loved, by the way, a very interesting man from Scotland, thoughtful and knowledgeable and fatherly), and offered to help him clean the car so I could speed things along.

The way he explained to me exactly what had to be done, exactly which cloths to use (there were at least four different shades of blue and each one served a different purpose), the seriousness with which he took this process, it all reminded me of you.  It probably took him longer to explain everything to me than it would have for him to just do the whole thing himself.  And, of course, even after his long explanation he was reluctant to really let me do much -- he was obviously convinced I would get it wrong.

But, finally he told me I could dry off the top of the vehicle.  Standing there perched on the top of the back tire and leaning over the moon roof of this Land Rover with a rag while a crew of 20 people waited for me to finish, I chuckled to myself.  It was a sight you would have loved to have seen, and one in which I would have told you about afterwards and made a joke about how the money you spent on my college education was going to good use.

Afterwards, walking down and away from our set, which was a deserted campground at the top of a pile of rocks, I saw this sight, these mountains bathed in purple, and I just burst into tears.  Where are you, Dad?  Where are you?  Every time I saw those mountains over the next few days at exactly the time of the day when they turn purple in the setting sun, I thought of you and I cried behind my sunglasses.  I crouched behind cars and hid from everyone and just took a minute to cry for you.  God, I miss you so much, Dad.

love amy

Double bow

You taught me to tie my shoes, and you taught me that it is absolutely and completely critical and non-negotiable and just plain foolish and courting disaster to not tie double bows.

You imagined those poor fools who didn't know this out in the world as tripping on their untied shoelaces, falling on their faces and breaking their noses and knocking out teeth as a result. Or falling down an escalator. Or into a ladder and knocking someone else off. Etc. I am sure you had more scenarios than this.

Even now, when I'm trying on, say, sneakers, I put the shoe on, tie a double bow, and walk around the store to see if it fits. I mean...it is a force of habit that cannot be broken.

I was reminded of this yesterday because I have this cute new pair of silver shoes with laces, and the laces are really short. It makes it very hard to tie a double bow, but I realized yesterday that if I can't I'll just need to get new shoelaces for them. No alternatives!

Love M

Beekman Redux

It's funny Megan wrote about the Beekman Towers.  That hotel and that entire area of NYC is imprinted in me, it's my first impression of Manhattan.  Those exciting trips into the city when we rode in taxis laden with shopping bags, where we got dressed up and went to fancy dinners and shows, sometimes even went to the apartments of fancy friends of yours and Mom's. NYC around the UN and the Beekman, that is the NYC of my childhood, the NYC of you and Mom dressed to the nines and treating us like princesses.

One time, you let me go up to the top of the Beekman with you so you could sit at the bar and sip a martini.  I was way too young to be in a bar, and I was thrilled at being up there on top of the world with you, looking out of the skyline from the wrap around balcony.  I can still feel the air in the lobby, in the suites, hear Megan shushing me whenever I made a single noise while she was trying to sleep in our shared sofa bed.

The Beekman is where I learned about good tipping, from you.  Michael the bellhop was your favorite, and he always called you by name (Mr. Dempsey) and you in turn referred to him by name.  I want to say that Michael was actually a cousin or something of the Mendelsohn's, but I can't remember exactly; I just feel like there was some vague connection there.

Anyway, tipping etiquette -- then, as now -- stressed me out immensely.  I've never figured out how to be a smooth tipper, like you were.  I would watch every time Michael or one of the other bellhops did something for us to see how you handled tipping.  One time I noticed you didn't tip when someone brought our bags to the room.  I asked you about it and you told me that you saved all the tips up for the end of the stay, when you would hand a nice big tip to each of the bellhops.  I worried that since they didn't know this was your plan that they might secretly hate us and think you were cheap.  You were not worried about this at all -- I don't know if it was experience, or our history of staying there, or what, but they knew that they'd be well taken care of by the end of our stay.  I've always thought of this, your smoothness with tipping, and never been able to replicate it.  There's not a slick bone in my body!  But you could be really slick sometimes, and picturing you in the Beekman always makes me think of this young, handsome, sharply dressed father, hiding a $20 bill in his hand as he smoothly handed it over to an equally discreet bellhop.

My worldview was shaped so heavily by those trips to the Beekman, those early visits to NYC.  Wandering into that area is like wandering into the past.  Sometimes I can't believe it's the same city I live in, the city from those trips.  What a joy they were, always.

love a

Summertime

Winter is officially gone.  Per usual, there was no gradual transition.  It's cold, so cold you can't imagine what warm sunshine would feel like, and then almost the next instant it's so hot you're running to put your sweaty face in front of an air conditioning vent to cool off.  And despite how quickly it happens, by the time the air is really hot and sticky, winter is such a distant memory that it almost doesn't feel real.

So all traces of winter are gone, and with it your death has receded into the realm of the surreal.  It feels very much as if it never happened, and at the same time as if it happened just one minute ago, as if it is always happening.  I haven't been writing to you lately.  I'm very busy with work again, and when I'm not working I'm migraining.  Usually, I'm doing both at the same time.  My mind is lost in the world of cameras and cranes and red rock deserts and canyons as I prep for a shoot in Utah, and when I have a minute to think, I am consumed by migraine, which erases all thoughts and feelings other than a dull nausea and a general unease.  It's almost impossible to feel any emotion other than misery during a migraine, and it's utterly impossible to envision the past or the future, to imagine what it feels like not to have a migraine.

But in the moments, in the very rare clear moments when I take a pause from my work and I don't have a migraine, I think of you, Dad.  Always of you.  You and your casual, happy demeanor.  Your blue eyes, your gravelly voice, your stoicism.  Don't talk about it, don't think about it.  This was Mom's advice to me a few weeks ago when I burst into tears on the phone with her.  I miss Dad, I had said.  And we are all fighting our own private battles with grief, and for her at that moment she didn't want to let grief overcome her, so she shut down the conversation with "don't think about it, don't talk about it."  If ever there was a motto for our family, that might have been it.  There are so many things you didn't talk about, I wish I could have known more.

But more than that I wish you were here to enjoy the beginning of summer, to be elated by golf season getting back into swing (pun for your benefit).  To work in the garden and open the pool and check the temperature every day.  To seek compliments on how nice the pool and the yard look.  To sit on the back deck, grill steaks and hamburgers on your barbecue.  To ask who wants cheese and who doesn't on their burger, and then to forget and put cheese on all of them.  To come home from a morning of golf and head up for your afternoon nap.  To take drives out east with Mom.  To celebrate Mother's Day with us tomorrow, and Father's Day in June, a day which I am dreading the approach of already.

Miss you, Dad.  More than you know.

amy

The Beekman

The other day, on my way to an appointment, I found myself walking right by the UN. If I had had more time, I would have gone to see the Beekman, the hotel we often stayed in with you and mom when we were kids.

You loved it because it was all suites - so you and mom got the bedroom, if Marc was with us he got a cot, and Amy and I had to share the sofa bed.

When it was just you and mom, you usually went to the Helmsley Palace (now the NY Palace) where I've stayed for work, which is just a lovely place.

We didn't travel too much as a family, but we did spend quite a few long weekends in the city over the holidays.

When we were very little, we spent a few days doing touristy things in the city with the Mendelsohns. We went to the top of the Empire State building. We walked up 5th Ave, and went into the Trump building that had the waterfall in the lobby (or down 1 floor?). Wow! we thought. A waterfall. In. A. Building. That was crazy and I remember how giddy it made me feel.

We visited the Museum of Natural History, and I refused to walk under the giant whale, because I thought it was going to fall on me. I remember going all the way around the perimeter of that giant room with Mom.

And we went out to dinner at Windows on the World, and there was a band, and we actually danced on a Saturday night on Manhattan, you and me, all dressed up, with the city lights spread out before us, and it really felt like we were on top of the world, not just looking at it.

Years later, you let me plan our itineraries when we went into the city - what shows to see, what galleries to stop into, and so on. You got me a membership to the Met, and we also used to see special exhibits at Moma, too, like the Matisse retrospective that was to this day one of the loveliest things I've ever experienced.

I've written on this blog before about how you helped shape my love of music, but I think I was wrong to limit that to music. You helped me feel like it's my place to see beautiful paintings, sculpture, to enjoy a beautiful building or scene. Mom too - of course, nobody has a sense of beauty like she does - but you were a part of that.

It's been a little while since I've written on here last, Dad, but you've been on my mind more than ever. Sometimes I think the less I write the more I think about you. I have a lot more to say, don't you worry.

Love you.
M

The Power of Observation

Megan and Mom and Marc have got me hooked on mysteries.  What is it about mysteries and the Dempsey family?

Of course, now I want to be a detective.  Do you think I would be a good detective?  You would have been a good one.

The other day I was wondering if I could get a tiny tattoo on the inside of my left wrist and hide it for eternity from Mom, who would hate it.  As you know I wear my watch on my right wrist despite being right-handed.  I thought, well I could just switch my watch over to my left hand every time I was going to see Mom, and the band would hide it.  I knew that if you were here, I would never get away with that.  You would notice within minutes if I changed the wrist I wore my watch on, and you would ask me about it, and probably before I even had a chance to answer you would have discovered the tattoo.  You noticed everything!

I can think of more than a few times when you noticed me doing something I wasn't supposed to be doing and you just caught my eye, made use of raised eyebrows to make sure I noted that you had seen me, and then never brought it up again.  Detective Discreet Dempsey, that's what they'd call you.

Miss you.
A

The Most Interesting Person in the World

Thinking about that chandelier in the dining room, I remembered a photography assignment I had in High School for a self-portrait.  Clad in all black with hundreds of layers of black eyeliner circling my raccoon eyes, I set up my picture with my face being lit dramatically by only the lantern bulb from the chandelier.  It was a very moody, very serious, very deep (obviously) portrait of a 16 year-old suburban girl who was the most interesting person in the world.

My cat Barry is one of the most absurd creatures on earth, everything he does looks ridiculous and goofy and makes me laugh out loud.  But, the best part about Barry is that he takes himself utterly seriously -- he looks like some sort of prancing buffoon, but he thinks he is the king of lions.  His old owner described one of his poses as his "Most Interesting Cat in the World" pose.  Several times a day I laugh out loud and say, "Barry, how do you take yourself seriously?"

A sixteen year-old girl who has faced no serious hardship to speak of and yet is dressed as if she's in mourning for all of life and sets up a moody self-portrait lit only by the lantern of a chandelier is not dissimilar to Barry, in a lot of ways.  How did you take me seriously?  But, you did.  Or, at least you did long enough to help me with my photography assignment.  I went to you to help me take the actual photo and to set up my composition, and you didn't laugh once.  You took it as seriously as I did, utterly patient and devoted to the project.

While you teased us endlessly (which has given me a fondness for people who can make me laugh about myself), you also knew when it was important to support us and take us seriously.  This was one of those moments.  I would have been humiliated if you had mocked my very serious artwork and my very serious process and my very serious eyeliner, but you would never have done so.  You worked with me on the composition and you looked through the viewfinder and pressed the buttons on the camera.

You were supportive when you read my self-serious college essays and with all of my photography.  And I can picture your face, your smile, it wasn't fake.  You were proud.  You loved helping me with photography -- we picked out my DSLR camera together, you gave me a zoom lens for it for Christmas one year.  You were happy if we were happy, in the most true sense of it.  Not to mention that you loved gadgets and reading the instruction booklet on a new toy was like Christmas for you.

You took me to hockey games and hockey card trading shows (??) when I decided I was obsessed with ice hockey.  You even found a way to get me a signed jersey from an old client of yours, Bobby Nystrom, who used to play for the Islanders.  We built stilts in the driveway one time when I guess I wanted to... what, audition for the circus?  You were kind and supportive and truly did just want us to follow our passions and be happy.  How lucky we were, as kids and as adults, to have a father like you.  Thanks for taking me seriously, Dad.  I love you.

Amy

Toasters and Tires

However many posts Megan and I write about your safety freak tendencies, we never seem to cover off on everything.  A few forgotten: toasters and tires.

First, toasters.  I was lead to believe (by you) that if someone were to stick a knife or a fork in a toaster, then that person and everyone in the room would instantly die.  This extended to even going near a toaster with a knife or a fork: instant death.  You might never have actually said these exact words, but the gravity with which you issued warnings about utensils and toasters conveyed this exact message.  Fork + toaster = instant death.

No part of me ever questioned the validity of this lesson or wondered if maybe you were exaggerating ever so slightly about the danger presented here, this was just the truth.  Several years ago I was staying with a friend and her family at their lake house in upstate New York.  We were all sitting around drinking coffee and having a casual breakfast one morning, when I saw my friend approaching a toaster with a fork in her hand.  Oh my god.  I could see it all unfolding, her intentions were clear: she was going to use that fork to retrieve the bagel from the toaster oven, and in the process she was going to kill us all.  I dove across the room in slow motion, screaming "nooooo" and nearly tackled my friend.  I was too late.  She had already stuck the fork in the bagel, which was in the toaster, and pulled the bagel out.  And you know what?  Not one of us was dead.  She and her father both looked at me like I was insane, and I sort of brushed it off.  I knew I had to wait until later to sit alone and re-examine all of the lessons I'd learned from early childhood to adulthood.

Just a couple of days after you died, the house on Thompson Street played a terrible trick on us.  I was sitting and reading (or maybe binge watching TV) in the breakfast room, and Mom was headed to bed. She came back a couple minutes later and beckoned me into the dining room.  "Something weird happened," she said, "when I went to turn the lights off and now they are stuck on."  She tried to turn the lights in the chandelier in the dining room off, and when she'd done so she had heard a loud pop and then the switch had ceased working.  The chandelier bulbs were stuck on.  The second switch in the hallway had no effect on them either.  Hmmm, I thought.  We didn't want to leave those lights going all night, and I was a little bit scared that there was going to be an electrical fire.  I really, really wanted you to be there to deal with it.  You would have known instantly what was wrong and how to fix it.

Brilliantly, I came up with the idea of unscrewing each individual lightbulb from in the chandelier to get them to turn off for the night, and we could deal with the broken switch in the morning.  Covering my hand with my sweatshirt, I unscrewed the bulbs one by one.  As I did so, I wondered if I was making some serious mistake that was going to cause the house to blow up.  Again I really, really wished I could ask you.  Would you say what I was doing was wildly insane and stupid?  Or would you say that it was the right thing to do until we could get an electrician in?  I had absolutely no idea, but I pretended to Mom that I was completely confident in my plan and that all was well.

As soon as Mom went to bed, I ran upstairs and woke up Marc.  He grumbled from the other side of the door, what?!  "Ummm," I said, "I may or may not have just set the house to blow up over night.  Can you please come take a look?"  Marc came downstairs and examined things and said that I had done the right thing and all was well and that the house was not going to explode overnight.  However, from his slight hesitancy I could tell that what he was really thinking was that he wished he could ask you and that he should pretend for my sake that he knew what he was talking about, as I had pretended for Mom's sake.

If the seriousness of going near a toaster with a fork was what you made it out to be, I can't imagine how you would have reacted had you seen me with my sweatshirt sleeve pulled over my hand unscrewing the hot bulbs on the broken chandelier.  It felt like I was breaking all the rules.

Your other obsession was spare tires.  This past summer, I got a flat tire driving home from Jennifer's wedding on Long Island.  I got it fixed that night, and then forgot to get a back-up spare tire.  You told me that I needed to get one immediately.  I said yes, sure, I will soon.  You cannot drive without one, you said.  Yep, I continued to placate you.  Then you launched an email, text, and voicemail campaign that would have any outsider thinking you worked for the spare tire lobby.  Relentless.  I finally got the back up and about a week later got another flat tire on the way out of town one weekend.  Triple A came to fix it, but it was too late to find a tire shop to get a back up that night.  I would have to delay my trip until morning, unless I drove to Pennsylvania with no spare.  The Triple A guy told me I could chance it, and I looked at him like he had suggested I stick a fork in a toaster while lying in a bathtub: "Um, no, my father would kill me if I drove without a spare."  I did wait until morning, and I do have a spare tire, and I do not put utensils in toasters, and amazingly I did not start an electrical fire with the chandelier in the dining room.  And I miss you.

Love a