Missing You.

Tonight is one of those nights, Dad, I just can't stop the crying.  It doesn't seem real.  I can't believe that I'll never see you again.  Not as in "I can't believe it" like a saying, but as in I actually can't believe it.  I don't know how to wrap my head around it.  I just want you to come back.  Okay?  Just please come back.  I don't know how else to say it, I don't know who I can appeal to, but this can't keep being the state of things.  You need to come back, Dad, and you just need to be here.

You died again tonight.  You've died so many times over the past three months.  Because it all happened so quickly the first time around, because there was no time to prepare, to understand, to accept, because it produced a state of utter shock and my body did what bodies do in situations when they decide that the pain is too much to bear, it covered it up and pretended it didn't happen.  It took your death, and it put a great big piece of wood in front of it - a flat like they use to build fake walls on movie sets.  And I guess the idea was that it would slowly move this flat out of the way, take down the fake wall between what I see and reality, and one day there would be no wall at all.

But, it doesn't really seem like it's gone that way.  More like, the wall got moved into place and then sometimes it gets moved out of place suddenly, and I see what's on the other side, and it's horrific and shocking and I can't bear it and then the wall goes back.  For the first few weeks after your death, these little moments of removed wall were so horrible, they felt like murder scenes in a movie being played back in slow motion with the sound turned off.  People screaming and screaming, but with no sound coming out.  I would wake up in the middle of the night with panic attacks, hyperventilating.  Or I'd have to run out of the office or whatever public place I was in to lock myself into a bathroom stall and shake with sobs.

As time has gone on, it's gotten less violent.  I guess the wall is being moved inch by inch, like it's supposed to be.  But, still, you die all the time.  You die when I'm in my exercise class, in a plank pose, my face inches away from the carpet.  You've died so many times with my gaze lost in the strands of grey wool in that room.  You die on the subway, walking down a sidewalk in my neighborhood, sitting in my living room, in restaurants, in bars.  How many times are you going to die?  I don't know how many more times I can take.  Oh, Dad, I'm sorry to be so down.  I know it's not your fault.  I have been locked in my apartment for days with migraines and I just miss you, and I'm sick of my snot and my pain and my tears and I just wish you would come back.  How is it so easy to picture you, your smile, hear your voice, the full sentences, your intonation, you are here, but you are not, and I'm afraid I'm just going to keep losing you.

I never knew anything could be this horrible, I never knew a pain like this existed.  The day that you died, when we got back to the house I went upstairs and went to sleep for at least four hours.  That may seem weird, but I just went into a cocoon.  When I woke up and came downstairs, Mom and Sashi were sitting at the kitchen table.  Someone had sent a platter of cold cuts and cheeses and breads.  Starving, I made myself a sandwich and sat down.  Mom and Sashi kept chatting, I don't remember what about.  Then Sashi said to Mom, "you are a classy woman.  You are very impressive. In India, the widow would be sobbing uncontrollably and throwing herself on the body, the grave, and it's such a spectacle.  You are a classy lady."  Mom said she'd spent the morning crying by herself, but still, I know what Sashi meant.  She would never have such an unbridled display of grief in public.  All I can think of tonight is that I feel like I understand the feelings of those widows who want to throw themselves on the grave or the body heaving with sobs.  I can't stop calling out to you, Dad, as if you can hear me, as if you might respond.  I miss you, which seems like a grossly inadequate way of expressing how much you mean to me.

love a

Construction & Destruction

They took away my sidewalk today.

You know that old parking lot across the street from my apartment building, the one with the rusty old gate and padlock?  Well, they've finally broken ground on the new construction happening there - the former junkyard is scheduled to be transformed into five fancy townhouses with all glass sunrooms floating on wooden roofdecks.  Downtown Brooklyn and the last outskirts of Boerum Hill are blowing up, all the sudden all of the parking lots are building sites, old buildings have come down -- demolished almost overnight, leaving gaping holes in the horizon which will soon be filled with scaffolding and cranes when the building sites go up around them.

It's impossible to walk down the street around here without having to cross the street when met halfway down a block with a sudden "sidewalk closed" notification preceding big plastic orange barriers.  It feels as if the neighborhood is building up around me, and it always makes me think of that Chet Baker song...  they're writing songs of love, but not for me.  These new developments are not for me.  I am not long for this world, this Brooklyn of the ever skyrocketing prices, this Boerum Hill of the million dollar one bedroom condos.  My building will be sold, no doubt, at some point, and either leveled or gutted.  It's being built up around me, but it is not for me.

Everywhere you turn, there is a building rising.  I've been watching the slow development across the street with great trepidation.  First, months ago, they cleaned out the lot and closed it up.  Uh oh.  This did not bode well.  There were rumors of an Ace Hotel, and I pictured staring across the way from the window of my kitchen / living room combo into the boutique rooms styled to feel like old boarding house rooms, watching trendy advertising folk and photographers and models coming and going, smoking their cigarettes in front of the revolving doors out front.

Next there was a single lift one day holding three executive types standing maybe thirty feet in the air looking out through binoculars.  Maybe they were scoping out the view?  They were essentially level with my window, and I glared at them, tried to make it clear that they were not welcome.  I'm sure it was very intimidating.

A month or two ago, they broke ground.  I never thought I'd have cause to actually use that expression, but it is the term for what happened.  They broke the ground.  They are going to build on it, and I guess they need to dig the foundation.  Since I've been stuck at home with unending migraines for weeks on end, this cycle of building seems even more torturous than usual.  The second a jackhammer stops at one site, it is picked up a block away at a different site.  It's amazing how far sound actually does carry when you don't want it to.  So I lie here, head buried under blankets and pillows, trying to block out all the light and the sound, praying for an ounce of silence, a minute of peace, of relief from pain and misery.  And the quiet, when it comes, is like a gift.  But, it does not last.

Owen died in March, 2013, two years ago this month.  I had spent the week preceding his death working from home, taking care of him after his surgery.  He was dying, though I didn't get it at the time because I'd never seen someone progress from life to death, and I sat here day after day feeling the life sucked out of both of us.  March is the most miserable month, a cruel month.

When I came back to my apartment the morning Owen died, I stood looking out my window.  Across the street caddy corner to me, right across from the lot that will now be five fancy townhouses, is a very large old townhouse.  I'd never seen anyone come in or out of it since I'd lived here, always wondered if it had an occupant.  On the day that Owen died, I watched as a team loaded up a dumpster with all the contents from inside the house.  Its occupant -- it had had one afterall -- must have died.  And he or she must have been old.  And he or she had no family there to clean out the house, just a team of guys wearing plastic gloves and dumping things into a large dumpster.  I watched this happen and couldn't help but relate it to Owen's death.  For three days, they cleaned out this old house.  It's still empty, surely it will be gutted soon and tricked out with its own floating glass room on a roofdeck too.  The property alone is probably worth millions.

So far, the construction across the street hasn't been as bad as I imagined it would be, but I know from experience of the other buildings that it will get there.  There will be months on end of undying sound, pounding, steel hitting steel.  And today, they committed the unthinkable.  They took away my sidewalk with those big plastic orange barriers.  I watched the guy do it, and I tried not to think poorly of him as I slowly walked by and scoped out the situation.  He seemed like he probably had a family he was taking care of, and this was his job, and he was not stealing my sidewalk on purpose.  But still.  It seemed like an affront.  It seemed like a personal attack.  I won't see that sidewalk again for at least a year, maybe two.  And they're writing songs of love, but they're not for me.

And what does this have to do with you, Dad?  I don't know, except that it seems related to your death somehow.  When they took the sidewalk away today, I felt something akin to actual grief.  I thought, please stop taking things, stop taking my home.  Because the more the buildings rise around me, the more I feel like this won't last forever, this home I've tried to build, and I'm all worn out on losing this year.  Or maybe I'm just drawing a whole bunch of meaningless parallels and it only feels like it has something to do with you because everything feels like it has something to do with you, because I miss you in every ounce of sidewalk and every minute of waiting on line in a grocery store, and all the breaths I take and all of the thoughts I think.

a

Death & Taxes

Finally I'm sitting down to start the tedious process of putting together my 1099's and deduction spreadsheet to take to my accountant to do my 2014 taxes.  I've been putting this off for months.  This is the first time I'll be doing my taxes without sending the return to you to review before submitting it, and that makes me feel a bit at sea.  It's sort of unfathomable for me to submit a tax return without having your eyes on it first.  Even though you fired yourself as my accountant three or four years ago, you'd still give me advice and talk me through the process both before and after I saw my own accountant.  For the first ten years of my "adult" life you simply filed my return for me.

Going through my old bank statements just now, I kept trying to skip December, 2014.  You know what happened in December, 2014.  Nothing good.  Nothing I want to relive.  It turns out you can't scroll from November to January, or January to November without passing December each and every time.  And so, of course, I'm thinking of you.

There has to be a better way to do this deduction spreadsheet, one that doesn't take 6 or 7 hours of excruciatingly dull spreadsheet man power, but I don't know what that way is, aside from being much better organized all throughout the year, which seems like a hopeless cause for me.  So starting the process every year is a matter of reviewing all of my documents from last year, going through all my various spreadsheets and PDF's, and thinking, ohh, right, I have to do that, and oh, yes, I'll have to do that again, and uhhhh, do I really have to go through that whole thing again?  And stupidly I just thought, huh, this really does just seem to happen every year.  Every damn year.

And then of course you know what popped into my head.  The only sure things in life are death and taxes.  I've always hated that inane saying.  But, you know what?  Today, at least, it feels pretty true.

I miss you endlessly, not just during tax season.

love a

Addicts & Accosting

I ran out this morning to grab a cup of coffee from down the street.  I returned from this quick coffee run with a new rug, a standing lamp, and a wall clock.

Here's the honest truth: I seem to have developed a full on shopping addiction since you died.  I'm not blaming you, just noting that the two are correlated.  It started with redecorating the apartment as a nesting reaction to losing you.  The project was a really good one to dive into, something for me, Mom, and Megan to focus on together.  Very early on in the process, I felt I was craving online shopping the way an addict craves a fix.  Getting lost in black holes of internet hours, clicking on rug after rug after rug.  It was numbing behavior, I know enough to see that.  But, I reasoned, I just went through a massively traumatic experience,  I am grieving, I am doing my best to process the events and feel the pain, to work through it, but no one is able to go through things like this without a certain degree of numbing.  Anyone who says they are is fooling themselves.  Reese Witherspoon (not her, really, but the character she played in Wild) went on a crazy heroin and sex addicted spree for years after her mother died, then she walked across the country to combat that sort of behavior.

Clicking on endless rugs, couches, vintage opera glasses, and clocks, driving back and forth to the outlets on eastern Long Island countless times, spending a bit more than I should, and making endless trips up and down the stairs with new and discarded furniture is surely better numbing behavior than unsafe sex and heroin, right?  So what if I stayed up until 2am last night because I couldn't stop searching online for the perfect wall clock.  This is what I keep telling myself.  And, this is what I was telling myself as I struggled down the street with all my (quite heavy) new loot today.

Because here's the other thing I have discovered.  For some reason, I really and truly believe that if you are spending money at Target or some other discount store, or if you buy something that is discounted by a large percentage, then you are not actually spending money.  All my loot came from Target today.  I knew I wanted the lamp, which is why I went there.  The clock came as a super cheap temp clock for me to put on the wall until I could afford to get the one that I've been lusting after in Williamsburg that I definitely can't afford right now.  And the rug the same.  I figured I'd try it out for size and then return it, buy the one online that I really like.  But, really, all this stuff adds up to actual money.  And for some reason I can't seem to understand that.  Discount or not, it hits your credit card in the same way.

But, I digress.  Walking down the street, I had to keep switching the hand that was holding the plastic handles taped onto the box that held the jumbo stainless architect's lamp.  It really was quite heavy.  Every twenty feet or so I had to stop, take a break, stretch out my aching hand, and switch to the other still aching hand.  It took me about thirty minutes to walk the ten minutes from Target back to my house.  And most of that time was spent going over the above justification in my head -- you're not doing heroin, it's okay if you're a little bit addicted to shopping right now, this is better than sex addiction, what if you became an alcoholic instead, this should be easier to quit eventually than meth, and on and on.

I reached my apartment building and fought to open up the gate to the outside stairs while still balancing everything in my arms.  A man approached, obviously cracked out, tweaking, whatever it is they call it when someone advances past an online shopping addiction to an actual meth addiction.  There's a lot of drugged out people around here.  One woman used to sit on my doorstep every day for months.  Sometimes she was nice and told me I looked pretty when I came home.  Sometimes she was indignant that I came out of the door and "didn't even have a puppy" with me or some other such nonsense.  And sometimes she looked really, really unhappy and cold, and the last time I saw her I gave her one of my old winter coats.  One time a few months ago I came home and there was a really drunk guy on the stoop with two women.  He didn't want to move to let me by, and threatened to get violent.  Luckily for me, the women calmed him down and I got into the building without getting beat up.  Anyway, there's some sort of rehab place down the other end of the block and thus lots of drugged out and down and out people around.

So back to this afternoon, this guy is approaching and he is saying "excuse me, excuse me" and I am ignoring him, because he is definitely bad news.  And I am struggling to get my keys out of my bag while holding all these dumb boxes, which are seriously slowing me down, and he is getting closer and closer and still talking to me, and I am still ignoring him and finally I can't ignore him any longer so I look at him.

I've just gotten my keys out and am trying to get them in the door.  "Can you take me upstairs with you?" he says.  "No!"  I say, and try to get the keys in the door more quickly, but I keep slipping, and the jumbo architect lamp box in my arms is making me even more clumsy.  "Please, I have nowhere to stay, can't you just take me up into your apartment with you?  Take me upstairs" And he is walking closer and closer and is almost right up on the gate to the set of four stairs leading to the door that I'm still struggling to get my key into.  My eyes grow wide and I say forcefully, loudly, "NO.  NO!"

I had not been expecting this.  I though he'd ask for some money, for the jumbo architect's lamp, whatever, not to come into my apartment.  After I yell the second no, he looks at me and says "No?  Oh, yeah?"  And starts to open the gate and walk up.  His tone is threatening, he is 2 feet away from me, and the runner rug and wall clock and jumbo architect's lamp box have made it so that I am not yet in the building, and if I know if I open the door now, he can easily push me inside and get in too.  So I just stand there, wide eyed and shocked.  And the first thing I think is, so, this shopping addiction is going to get me killed after all.  It is only because of all the loot I'm carrying that I wasn't able to make a quick escape into the building.

And I catch sight of the guy doing construction across the street eyeing us, and it's broad daylight, and I know more or less that nothing that terrible will happen as long as I stand my ground and don't give this guy the opportunity to push me into the building and into the dark, out of the public view.  And the guy stops ascending the stairs and starts laughing hysterically and saying "I'm just messing with you, I'm messing with you" and he laughs like the meth addict he is and I hear him laughing all the way down the street.

Because pretending to accost single women is hilarious.  Frightening them outside of their homes, so funny.  The first time you came to see me in this apartment, Dad, you were not impressed.  You didn't say so, but I saw you scoping out the area when we went outside, eyes catching a teenage boy whose pants were too baggy for your liking, and you pulled me aside later and told me to be careful around here.  I didn't like the looks of that guy, you said.  And sometimes people make fun of me for being overly cautious, but it's always you in my head not liking the looks of some guy.  This is one of those neighborhoods where a brownstone goes for three million dollars, and what may or may not come with it is a cracked out lady sitting on your stoop demanding to see a puppy.

I'm always careful, Dad, and aware of my surroundings.  I have you to thank for that.

love a

Joseph.

I went on a date tonight with a man named Joseph.

Only

He wasn't you.

God, I miss you so much, Dad.  I miss you so, so much.  When will it stop.  Please.  I want it to stop.

You Know What To Do

Your voice is still the voice of the answering machine at Mom's house.

"You've reached the Dempsey's, you know what to do.  Thank you."

It's been that greeting, in your voice, for as long as I can remember.  We used to giggle, when we were kids, about "you know what to do." It seemed so subversive, somehow.  You didn't come out and say "leave a message," you assumed people knew what they were doing.

What it was, really, was you.  Straight to the point.  Efficient.  Polite.

Dad, every time I call Mom and she isn't home, YOU answer.  Do you know how jarring that is, how hard to hear?  Every time it happens, I vow to talk to Mom about thinking about changing the outgoing message on the machine, but I never do.

Today, walking down a bright and crisp Brooklyn street after my first day of work in ages, I felt positive, good.  Mom had called, so I called her back.  You answered.  I left a quick message.  It was quick because I wanted to make sure I hung up before the stifled crying became less stifled, before anyone heard.

I called to Mom on her cell.  At the end of the conversation, I said "look, Mom, we may need to think about changing the answering machine recording."  It upsets you.  She said.  I know.  I don't know how to do it, but Marc and I can figure it out, she said.

"I don't want to delete him," I said, "but it's hard."

After we hung up, I almost called back immediately, or texted her, I wanted to retract my request.  DO NOT DELETE HIM.  Don't change that message, don't do it.  It's not my decision, after all, is it? And I don't want you to be deleted.

I told Mom that the other option was that she could just always be home to answer the phone so I never have to hear the machine.  I think that's a better option.  I don't know.  What do you think?  You know what to do.

a

I Hate It When You're Right

Well, Dad, you were right again.

I'm in the midst of redecorating my apartment.  When I say in the midst, I mean this project is actually interminable.  I started in early January, when it was a good project to throw myself into in the wake of your death.  And I'm sure there's a whole lot of obvious symbolism about nesting as a way to deal with grief and the loss of family.

But, this essay isn't about that.  This essay is about the damn mirror I just tried to hang in the hallway.  I've been tackling little bits of the apartment at a time.  After a massive, I mean really massive, overhaul of the living room, that room is mostly done (with the exception of painting the walls, which Erica and I are going to do this weekend).  But despite the fact that I spent no less than 45 minutes the other night trying to get the exact spatial ratio exactly perfect on the layout between a compass, a piece of a volcano from Iceland, an antique key from Ireland, and a round antique knife (yours, but I think originally Grandpa's) on my console table, there are swaths of the apartment that have still been entirely ignored and look like disaster areas.  These include my bedroom, the hallway / entryway, kitchen, and bathroom.  So, yeah, pretty much everything except the living room.

Today I decided to tackle the hallway.  I got this great big desk with hutch from Restoration Hardware to be the centerpiece for when you open the door.  It's damaged like crazy, but it was on super duper sale and I don't mind the scuffs -- it just looks antique.  I put my old white bench to the right when you walk in, and the idea is to get a new runner rug and a pretty mirror to hang above the bench with nice hooks for coats on either side.  But, I've used up all my money so for now I have to make do with what I have, which is a mirror with hooks on the bottom of it from Pottery Barn.  It was already hanging in the entryway, but it's not centered over the bench and that was driving me crazy.  I decided I'd hang the mirror in the right place and call it a day until I got an influx of new design budget and could get a nice new mirror and hooks.

I took the mirror down and discovered that it was hung by two screws spaced exactly 16 inches apart.  I actually measured this distance, with an actual tape measure, rather than just eyeing it, which was a step above my usual technique.  Score one for Amy.  I went to get my drill, which didn't work.  Upon opening the battery compartment I realized only 2 of the 4 required double A batteries were loaded.  I vaguely remembered taking two of the batteries out to put them in something else.  But what was that something else...  I checked the remote -- nope, that takes triple A.  I checked several drawers, and while I am apparently stockpiling triple A batteries for some future shortage, I don't have a single double A.  It would take under 3 minutes to throw on shoes, run down the stairs, cross the street, ask the guy behind the counter at the bodega for two double A batteries, pay him, and run back up.  Really, under three minutes.  It's what I should have done.  It's what you would have done.

But, it is not what I did.  I can do this without a drill, I thought.  Who needs a drill.  I unscrewed the first screw that had been holding the mirror in using a regular Philips head screwdriver.  The second one presented a challenge.  It was stuck.  I needed a drill.  I opened a drawer and grabbed a different screw and left the stuck one sticking half out of the wall.  This is a temporary measure until I get my nice new mirror and nice new hooks, I kept reminding myself.  It's okay if I half ass it.  I just need this stupid mirror centered over the bench so I feel centered when I walk in the door.

I eyed the center of the bench, rather than measuring it (there's only so much growth a person can experience), and started to screw the first screw in the wall.  Or, rather, I tried.  I really needed a drill.  I started hammering it with the back of the screw driver.  No go.  I tried the other screw, which was sharper, and that seemed to go a little easier.  I hammered it a bit, screwed it in a bit, then took it out and put in the less sharp screw.  I got it about three quarters of the way in.  Good enough.  Measuring exactly 16 inches to the left, I put the second screw in.  Again, I needed a damn drill.  I was getting hot.  I stripped off my sweater and stood on the bench to get better leverage.  I got the screw about halfway in.  Good enough.  I picked the mirror up and tried to get it on -- put it first on the one screw, fine, then on the second, but it wouldn't catch, the screw wouldn't go into the stupid tiny screw hole.  The screw was like one twentieth of an inch too far to the right.  I pushed and pulled and fought and tried to force it and this whole time I see you shaking your head and I hear you saying "Amy.  Amy.  Amy."

It's fine!  I say.  It's fine it's fine!  This is just a temporary measure until I get my nice new mirror.  I just need this damn thing hanging centered right now!  Just go and get a drill and measure it properly and do it right, you say.  NO.  I will not.  I continue to fight, lose, and have to pull the screw out and move it about a twentieth of an inch over to the right.  I can only get it about 3/8 of the way into the wall this time.  Good enough.  I'm sweating.  I put the mirror on, it fits, great, done.  Over.  In the very, very back of my head you say that surely I don't actually believe that the screws that are hanging onto the wall by a thread are actually going to support the mirror and the coats I plan to hang off the hooks on the bottom of it, but I brush your doubts away.  I got it, I'm fine.

I hang one coat, then a second.  When I put the third coat on the hook, the mirror and all the coats come crashing down.  But, of course, you already knew that would happen.

So, fine.  I'll stop off and get some stupid batteries on the way home later and I'll do it the right way, the way I should have done it in the first place.  And maybe one day I will learn that if you start out doing it the right way, then the three minutes that it would have taken to run to get the batteries would actually wind up saving about 3 hours in the end.  But, I don't know, Dad, I've been this way a long time.  As much as your voice lives in my head, I've never managed to be precise as you were.

love you
a

Passing Gas

Growing up, we were not allowed to curse, but even further than that, we were not allowed to say certain other words that you or Mom considered to be crass.  Farting was one of these words.  I still have a bit of a problem saying it and can't believe I actually just wrote it down.  We were definitely not a family who engaged in potty humor.

Bodily functions such as farting were meant to be done in secret and not to be discussed.  This was largely the case -- I am fairly certain I have never once in my life heard Mom or Megan fart or burp.  Maybe they don't do these things at all?  You, however, found it completely acceptable to fart out loud about once a week or so.  Sitting in the kitchen, a loud toot would escape, and we would stifle awkward laughter.  You would pause, then say "Zoe!"  After Zoe died, you blamed it on Eliot or one of the cats.  Mom would roll her eyes in disgust.

This was the exact extent to which farting was ever discussed in our household.  The word was not used, ever.  If it did have to be mentioned, you referred to it as passing gas.  If it did have to happen, it was blamed on the dog.

When I was in fifth grade, you and Mom agreed to let me go on a trip to Massachusetts with a friend and her family, to their vacation house in the Berkshires.  It would be the first time I was away from home without you and Mom.  I remember it as the most lonely, terrifying, and homesick five days of my entire life.  The misery started less than half a mile away from our house, sitting in their SUV in the parking lot of the harbor, waiting for the ferry to arrive.

Piled into the car were me, my friend, her parents, her little sister, and two dogs.  One or both of the dogs must have farted.  The smell was immediately discussed and laughed about and then the words "fart" and "toot" were thrown about as if they were in danger of going out of style.  This whole family was sitting there together laughing and talking openly about farting.  I was horrified, I froze up.  Who were these barbarians that you and Mom had seen fit to let me go off with for a week?  Where was their sense of propriety?  Immediately, a sense of dread and foreboding filled me and I longed for our pristine house on Thompson Street, where there was no farting and no impropriety.

It'd be tough to have gotten this far in life without having eased up ever so slightly on my willingness to talk about or hear about bathroom issues, but I still find it shocking when other people talk about these things openly, I still hear you in the back of my head clearing your throat loudly to display your disapproval.  I do, however, think farting is generally always hilarious. 

Warnings

We are a family of people who approach dogs on the street and ask their owners if we can pet them, what their name is, how old they are -- and we all especially love golden retrievers, since our own beloved Zoe was a golden.  I can see you slowly walking down a sidewalk in Manhattan, cigarette hanging out of your hand as you walk a bit behind us to smoke in solitude.  You spot a golden, smile big.  Walk over.  Make eye contact with the owner, say hello.  And then what you came for -- a big pet for an overly excited pup.

When you come back to us -- we are probably in a store, at this point -- you report the dog's name and age.  "Reggie.  8 years old."  Reggie was the name of the golden you fell head so over heels for that Mom finally surprised you with a 6 week old Zoe one Christmas morning.

Do you remember, for years after Zoe died, Mom had this horrible habit of going up to people with goldens on the street, petting the dog, asking how old, and then saying something along the lines of "oh, no, they never live long enough" or "they are so great until they die."  We'd sort of cough or clear our throats and try to steer Mom or the conversation elsewhere.  Mom!  We'd say afterwards.  You can't go up to people on the street and tell them their dog is going to die!  But she never heard us.  It took years for her to stop doing this, to stop being the very well dressed, attractive and totally together woman who would walk up to strangers on the street and unintentionally issue warnings of impending death.

Walking down the street now, I see someone with a cigarette hanging out of their hand, and I have to push the words back into my mouth, I have to hold them there, where they want to fly off of my tongue.  I just watched my Dad die of lung cancer, you know, you really shouldn't do that.  I especially want to say it to the young ones, the ones who still have time, the ones who are unaware of their own mortality, as I was so very not long ago.  The ones who think the rules don't apply to them. And of course I don't, and of course I know it wouldn't make a difference to them if I did, but the urge to say something is almost overpowering these days.

And I think back to you, sitting on the deck, in the kitchen at the stove with the fan on overhead, in the parking lot of a restaurant after dinner, walking slightly slower than us down a city street.  Smoking, always smoking.  And I know that nothing I said, nothing anyone else said would have changed anything.  You were who you were, and that I loved all of that person.  And that person was stubborn and did what he wanted to do.  I know there were times you tried to quit smoking.  Recently I found an electronic cigarette in the house.  I asked if you had tried to use it to quit.  I don't want to talk about it, you said (for some reason, you could make fun of me endlessly for my frequent use of this refrain, but there was no laughing when you used it).  Okay, I said.  Just tell me if you tried it.  Yes, you said, it didn't work.  End of conversation.

That was about how all conversations about your smoking went.  There weren't many of them, as we all knew they were destined to be fruitless.  When I was about 9 or 10, I would sometimes find your packs of hidden cigarettes, empty them into the trash, and replace them with rolled up pieces of paper that said "you're going to die."  How unbelievably cruel this seems to me now, but they indoctrinate kids pretty heavily on the anti-smoking, and I thought I was helping.  Uncle John was visiting one time when I did this, and he explained to me that addiction was a complicated and tough thing and that I should try to be a bit more understanding.  And so I was.  I know there were other efforts you'd made to quit, secret and ultimately failed efforts.  I never mentioned them.  I know a thing or two about secrets myself.

But now, thinking back to those times, how easy it is to render an image of you with a cigarette in your hand.  And the words are there, I have to push them back into my mouth, I have to hold them there, where they want to fly off of my tongue.  I just watched you die of lung cancer, you know, I wish you hadn't done that.

Rilke on Sadness

I believe that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension that we find paralyzing because we no longer hear our surprised feelings living.  Because we are alone with the alien thing that has entered into our self; because everything intimate and accustomed is for an instant taken away; because we stand in the middle of a transition where we cannot remain standing.  For this reason the sadness too passes: the new thing in us, the added thing, has entered into our heart, has gone into its inmost chamber and is not even there any more, -- is already in our blood.  And we do not learn what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing has happened, and yet we have changed, as a house changes into which a guest has entered.

Rilke

Hot dogs on a plane

Hey Dad,

Idriss and I flew out to Morocco last night. We were starving and that reminded me of this same trip last year, in which Idriss ordered special vegetarian meals for us, which he thought I would like.

Instead they took everything good* out of the meals—no cheese, no cookie—and I felt so mad at the time. So last night I turned to Idriss and asked him if I should be aware of any surprises coming my way. The good news is that he will not repeat that mistake.

But then I remembered another special airplane meal. I think that Amy and I were going to Florida with you and Mom, and maybe Marc too. You announced when we got on the plane that you had ordered special kids meals "for the girls", and these meals had a hot dog!

Our day was made, and I remember still that you were pleased as punch with your idea. Thanks for that hot dog, Dad. But extra thanks for showing that a small surprise can delight someone inordinately, and give them a fond memory many decades down the line.

xx
M

*Good, on a plane, is simply defined as edible.

I'm okay!!!!

I flew into LA on Thursday night and was planning on going hiking with my friend Tim on Friday morning around 10a.  I texted him from the runway when I landed and said my plane had been late and that we should plan to meet around 11a instead, but that I would text him when I woke up to confirm.  He said okay.

The next morning, I woke up, poured some coffee, and texted Tim.  This is what my text said:

"I'm okay!!!"

As soon as I pressed send I started laughing hysterically.  Still in a pre-coffee morning haze, I had substituted "okay" for "awake."  I had meant to let him know I was awake and starting to make the movements towards being ready to meet.  

When Tim and I did meet up, we laughed about my typo.  We imagined a world in which I just walked around shouting "I'm okay!!!" or randomly texting people to let them know that was the case.  And as funny as it was, I also wondered if there was a bit of truth in my lapsus linguae.

Was I finally starting to feel like I was okay?  The first 6 weeks after your death, 7 weeks, 8 weeks, I don't know, I was not okay.  No part of okay and I had anything in common.  But, now?  It's not that I don't miss you, it's not that I don't grieve intensely and get overcome at least once a day.  It's not that I even understand or accept what happened.  It's just, that, well, I sort of feel okay.

My friend Lindsay's father passed away about a month after you did.  They had more time to adjust to the situation - about seven months of knowing about his illness rather than the 7 days that we had knowing about yours - but it's hard any way it happens.  I texted Lindsay this morning to ask how she was doing.  She responded "One of the strangest things for me to admit is that I'm okay... not totally sad all the time."

And it seemed like she felt guilty about it.  And I do too.  I had dinner with my friend Matt tonight.  Matt lives in London, but comes out to NYC quite a bit for work.  We met 16 years ago, lost touch for ages, and now see each other about 5 or 6 times a year.  The last time I saw him was in the end of October, when I was in London.

It didn't occur to me until we sat down at the restaurant tonight that the only item I had to present in terms of "catching up" since I'd last seen him was your death.  And I was not interested in presenting that particular item.  I skirted around it for a minute or two, tried to draw out the story of the BBC show I was doing before you got sick, of my trip to LA, but then there was a big hole between mid December and last week.  And really only one thing has happened in that hole, and it would be very weird not to say it, and so I sort of blurted it out.  I said, well, I don't know if I told you (I knew I hadn't), but my Dad passed away sort of suddenly in December.

The reaction from people, when you say this, is usually one of shock and horror.  They want to ask questions.  I brushed the whole thing off very quickly and said "we don't have to talk about it." Matt said, but of course we can if you want to.  And I said, no, I don't.  And I changed the subject.

That's the first time I've done that, Dad.  The first time I saw your death as an inconvenience, an obstruction to talking about happier and funnier things.  I'm sorry.  I'm not okay, and then I am okay, and sometimes I just don't want to talk about it.  It feels wrong and disrespectful, but I don't mean it that way.

I love you and I always will.

a

Cross at your own risk

I saw something weird and funny yesterday. It was strange enough that a few jaded New Yorkers stopped to openly stare. 

There was a big dude out on the fire escape of an old building, on the fifth floor of what had to be a fifth floor walk-up. 

From the fire escape, a cable went down...down...down for five stories, over the street, and attached to a truck parked across from the building. Another dude manned the other end of the wire (or string?). 

At first, I couldn't tell what I saw. It looked like a ghost swooping through the air. 

Then I got closer, and saw what it was. The guy on up on the fire escape was bundling up large packets of dry cleaning. He put the hanger onto the cable, and pushed when the guy outside called ready. 

What? 

Yes, large packets of dry-cleaning bags over clothing (or something? drapes?) swooping down over the street and colliding with a heavy thud into the truck. 

I watched, saw what was going on, and laughed out loud. Another man joined me. 

You would have liked to see this, Dad, it really was a creative way to not carry all that crap down five flights of stairs. 

Safe? No freaking way. But very dramatic and funny. You would have laughed too. Then you would have ushered me back down the block rather than walk under the hazardous loading situation.

xx

M

Spring's Coming

I was out in Port Jeff again this weekend, and Long Island is still covered in dirty mounds of shoulder-high snow.  It's slowly starting to melt, though.  Standing in the sunny breakfast room this morning Mom and I listened to the thaw.  There's water dripping everywhere, you can hear it running.

I found Mom's missing pedometer in the driveway.  It must have been buried under all the snow before, but now, things are starting to be uncovered.  And who knows how long the pool light was accidentally on, but from the upstairs window last night I saw this iridescent light shining up from below the ice, finally peaking through the thinning snow.  

It feels like we are slowly coming out of hibernation, shaking off the freeze and the dark and starting to thaw out. The first signs of Spring are usually cause for joy.  And, I am happy that it's above freezing, that there is sunshine, that I only have to wear one jacket rather than two or three.  

At the same time, I feel saddened by the signs of time passing.  Life is moving forward, Spring is coming, and you are still not here.  I don't want to get farther and farther away from you.  And I almost feel as if, what right does the sun have to present itself now, when you are not here to bask in its rays?

If you were here, you would be so pleased that the weather was preparing itself for golfing season.  I wish you could get out on the course and play a few rounds with your friends.  I wish you were here to see the water dripping down, to feel the warm sunshine on your skin.

I wish you were here all the time.

a

Best Grandpa

I spent last week in LA, and in the desert out at Joshua tree. The desert was so quiet, you could hear the silence. And the air was bright and crisp and I felt peaceful and free, if only briefly. And I won't say I forgot about you that week, but I was distracted -- constantly with people and busy.  I've been to LA a million times, but never with you, so in that sort of situation it's very easy to imagine you're just back in Port Jeff where you belong. You're not gone, just home with Mom.

Something funny happened in the airport while I was getting my lunch, and I walked around chuckling out loud to myself about it. I felt carefree and relaxed, still high from my time out in the desert, in the open and the sun and the blue and the quiet. And then I stopped to adjust the bag on my arm and caught site of a fake gold Oscar trophy in an airport newsstand that said "Best Grandpa." And I burst into tears.

I ran to the closest bathroom and locked myself in a stall. Snot dripped onto the ground before I could grab a tissue. It had been at least a week since I'd watched a small drop of snot hit the gray and grimy floor of a public restroom. 

Something about the Best Grandpa trophy set me off. You would have been the best grandpa, and maybe I would have bought you that trophy because it was silly and fun and I think you would have liked it. I think it would have amused you and pleased you. And so suddenly I was mourning what never was. Mourning the fact that if I do ever have kids, they won't know you, and how unbearable is that? My fictional future kids would have absolutely loved you, and you them, and I simply can't believe that will never be the case.  How silly, to mourn something that never will be, that never was.

For a long time, I think I was pretty much immune to the idea of a biological clock, to the pressure to have children on any sort of timeline.  Not because I'm able to stand above the fray, but because I am a little bit stupid, I think, in some instances, and it takes me a while to catch on to the very regular phases of life that everyone else seems to know about without having to be told.  I've always been a late bloomer.  

And then slowly, quickly, it seemed like everyone around me, all of my friends and peers, were growing into little families of three and four.  One kid, two kids, how fast it all happened.  And suddenly I was 35.  And, if I'm being honest, I don't let myself think about this whole biological clock issue too much, about how I've got to meet someone within the next day or so if we are to be together for a happy two years before having a baby.  About how if I want to have a family of my own, a lot of things have to change very quickly.  

When you died, it was like rubbing salt in this proverbial wound.  Part of me never worried too much about this new family of my own because I still felt like I had a nuclear family of my own.  You, Mom, Marc, Megan, you were my family.  And one of the first things I thought of when you died was that I wanted a husband and a baby immediately, and then I wept at the unfathomable idea that if I do ever create this mythical family, it will no longer include you.  You won't get the chance to be the best grandpa.

I think about how you were with all of our various pets, your grand pets. Whenever you saw Owen you would exclaim "heyyyy, little fat boy! How's my little fat boy?" You'd be laughing, and full of joy. That's how I picture you would be with your grand kids, the ones who may never exist, the ones who will never know you if they do exist. If there is a place that people go when they die, I hope you are there with the little fat boy, and I hope you are laughing.

I miss you so much, Dad.

a

On reclining

We were without a coffee table for the first eight months we lived in Sea Cliff. It wasn't horrible visually, but it made reading so uncomfortable. No table on which to rest our feet!

This was a problem you had insisted on solving, many years ago.

When you and Mom added on the back sun room (along with the deck and the pool), you had one single requirement for that room, and you were absolutely resolute in this requirement. What was it? This thing that was making Mom sweat? A recliner. Yes, just a chair. Admittedly, kind of a big one, and a little ugly.

You and Mom had to go to  La-z-Boy and pick it out. She essentially admitted later that you got "by far the least ugly possible option." She slipcovered it in navy blue damask, and it went into the corner in the sunroom. That was when I was thirteen.

It's been re-slipcovered a few times since then, but that chair has been a fixture in the house for over two decades. Many were the times when I jumped into that chair and reclined with a book, and when you came into the room and were ready to relax, you'd clear your throat and give me a look.

You were not a scary man, but there was no arguing with you over the recliner. That, along with golf, afternoon naps, and a Saturday martini, was a part of who you were. If I started to stall, you'd say: "Nice try Megs. Now get up."

And the truth is, we still all tussle over it when we're home. In the evenings sometimes, Marc sits and reads in your chair. And maybe you were onto something. Because I've since gotten a coffee table, but I'm still not as comfortable as you were for all these years in your chair. I'm glad you had it for so long, and I'm glad it worked like a homing beacon for you. When I have more space, maybe I will try to find a less ugly recliner, too.

xx
M

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Dad

So, at some point in the last year or so I found out you really, really loved cinnamon rolls. I mean, who doesn't, sure. But they were apparently a real fixation with you.

And I found a recipe for sticky-looking cinnamon apple swirly numbers, and had planned to make them for you on Christmas morning (well, almost certainly I would have made them the day before, and brought them to PJ for Christmas).

I thought about squeezing them in at Thanksgiving, but with all the pies I was in total chaos. Mostly I find it impossible to believe that I will never bake cinnamon rolls for you.

I'm so sorry, Dad.

We all missed you so much last week.

Love,
Megan