"Life isn't fair" is something you used to say all the time when we were kids. It always infuriated me because it was invariably in response to one of us saying "it isn't fair" regarding some issue that would have been easily fixable, easily remedied "fair" with adult (your) intervention. For example, "She got a cookie and I didn't, it isn't fair." The desired response to this was, of course, "you are right and that is not fair, here is a cookie and now everything is fair." And sometimes that would be your response. But more often than not you would instead say "life isn't fair" and that was that. I hated when you said it for so many reasons -- one, your refusal to correct an easily fixable wrong and two, the fact that that phrase was the final word on the matter. There was no continuing to argue after "Life isn't fair" was brought out. When I think about times I've really, really disliked you there are not many, but most of them were probably preceded by the "life isn't fair" remark.
When I spoke at your memorial service, I talked about this phrase, and how angry it made me when I was a kid, but about how it also came into my head all the time as an adult. Every time my internal monologue says the words "not fair" your voice, gravelly and slow, jumps in immediately with a stern "life isn't fair." It's such a simple lesson, but one that seems so hard to learn, or so hard to accept. When we were kids and it would have been so easy to create fairness, you declined. Was this out of principal, laziness, or a real desire to let this lesson soak in, to help us to understand from an early age that things in this life will happen all the time that are simply not fair? That there is no overall scale of justice measuring out what is fair and not fair and making sure life acts accordingly.
Because, what the hell has happened here? You were alive. And you were fine. Or so we all thought. And then ten days later you were dead. How is that fair? It's not even conceivable, still, let alone fair. And I think life isn't fair, life isn't fair, and it is in your voice, always in your voice in my head.
Megan said she is terrified of this week. I am too, Dad. I'm really scared of it, dreading it as if something really terrible were scheduled to happen. And, it is. Tomorrow is the two month anniversary of your death, and two days after that is your birthday. And I could handle the two month anniversary, I think, but your birthday... Isn't it too soon for that? We just lost you, and then we were immediately hit with Christmas and New Years and now this? It isn't fair. And there is no one to appeal to, no one to say "excuse me, that's enough now, thank you." As if life were a waiter coming up to refill your glass and you could cover it and say I'm all set, thank you. I'm all set on the pain and heartbreak for now, no need to pour anymore. And, I guess that was your point all along, right? Life isn't a waiter and there is no one to whom you can appeal when things aren't fair.
Somehow I miss you more every day. I don't think February 25th has a right to exist as a date anymore, Dad, not without you. It isn't fair.
a
When I spoke at your memorial service, I talked about this phrase, and how angry it made me when I was a kid, but about how it also came into my head all the time as an adult. Every time my internal monologue says the words "not fair" your voice, gravelly and slow, jumps in immediately with a stern "life isn't fair." It's such a simple lesson, but one that seems so hard to learn, or so hard to accept. When we were kids and it would have been so easy to create fairness, you declined. Was this out of principal, laziness, or a real desire to let this lesson soak in, to help us to understand from an early age that things in this life will happen all the time that are simply not fair? That there is no overall scale of justice measuring out what is fair and not fair and making sure life acts accordingly.
Because, what the hell has happened here? You were alive. And you were fine. Or so we all thought. And then ten days later you were dead. How is that fair? It's not even conceivable, still, let alone fair. And I think life isn't fair, life isn't fair, and it is in your voice, always in your voice in my head.
Megan said she is terrified of this week. I am too, Dad. I'm really scared of it, dreading it as if something really terrible were scheduled to happen. And, it is. Tomorrow is the two month anniversary of your death, and two days after that is your birthday. And I could handle the two month anniversary, I think, but your birthday... Isn't it too soon for that? We just lost you, and then we were immediately hit with Christmas and New Years and now this? It isn't fair. And there is no one to appeal to, no one to say "excuse me, that's enough now, thank you." As if life were a waiter coming up to refill your glass and you could cover it and say I'm all set, thank you. I'm all set on the pain and heartbreak for now, no need to pour anymore. And, I guess that was your point all along, right? Life isn't a waiter and there is no one to whom you can appeal when things aren't fair.
Somehow I miss you more every day. I don't think February 25th has a right to exist as a date anymore, Dad, not without you. It isn't fair.
a
No comments:
Post a Comment