A Year Ago

Ristolable
Aug 26, 2017 · 2 min read

A year ago today I drove my father to the emergency room. He had been sick in bed for a week. It was unlike him. I thought he had a bad case of the flu. Driving him there, I complained about some other driver. It took some effort for him to say “Mikey, please do not get into a fight right now. I am not going to be able to help.” I quieted down and got him to the hospital. It was a long day of waiting around, and I didn’t think it was anything major. None of us knew then that cancer was laying waste to his body. He died a little more than three months later. People tend to heap praise and glory upon the dead, but I gotta tell ya, my dad was a great guy. The people who showed up to his funeral were a testament to that: old coworkers, forgotten friends, hell even the man’s dentist showed up. That’s the kind of guy he was. People liked him immediately. There was an uncommon warmth in him, and a genuine happiness too. Some days are easier than others, but I often find myself watching a Mets game or hearing some crazy news story and wishing I could share it with him. Those are the things I miss the most. A friend of mine with his fair share of experience in grief told me some weeks after my dad died, “Mikey, those wounds don’t heal. But the pain of them gets duller with time.” I dream of my dad often, but he’s always far away: not so far that I can’t see him, but too far to talk. Those dreams help, because at least I get to see him. I have vivid memories of being three, maybe four, watching him get ready to go to work. He’d have on his white collared shirt and he’d be shaving. I can smell the shaving cream even as I write this. Then when he was done I would touch his face, coarse and whiskery against my tiny hand. He had a mustache in those days. I would try to annoy him by touching his head, but I never managed to piss him off, and I’m sure I’ll smell that shaving cream for the rest of my life.

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