My Dad--the end

Since it happened I've had trouble saying the words. Even now, I don't even like the idea of typing them. When I describe it I say things like:

"Since last September..."
"Since my dad..."
"After last Fall..."

The words get stuck in my mouth. I can seriously feel them on my tongue, filling in my cheeks, itching my teeth.

---

I'm at work, and it's around 2:00. I've just come back from lunch, and I'm sitting at my desk checking emails or some other such nonsense. I glance up from my computer and see my sister standing at the reference desk outside the workroom. She looks at me through the window and I give her a toothy smile thinking she's brought my nephew in for a visit. She shakes her head and frowns. My coworker lets her in.

"What is it? Is it Grandma?"
"No," she says.
"Then what is it? Tell me!"

I can't look out that window now and not picture her standing there; see her face, puffy eyed like she's spent the morning in a barn mucking stables, allergic as sh*t to the horses she loved to ride. I can't drive past the road I know he was found on without thinking "this is where he was." Truthfully, I don't even know exactly where he was, choosing not to remember the specifics so I can go on thinking "I wonder if he was here? I hope so, because it's nicer here than over there..."

---

We still have his voice on our answering machine.

It's unnerving to call and have it go to voicemail. When it hits the 5th ring and I know mom's not going to answer because she's out (or more likely because the TV is so flippin' loud she can't hear it... *wink*) there's always that split second when I think "I should hang up" because I don't want to hear him. But like a junky, I always hang onto the line. And I always listen to the entire thing. And I always end up looking for something in that voice... Something that sounds familiar, or comforting, or funny. It's the same message and the same words, but I keep doing the same thing looking for a different reaction.

Hmm... Isn't that the definition of insanity?

---

A few weeks ago I was at my sister's house for dinner flipping through pictures on her camera when I came to one of him with my nephew on his knee. It was a random visit... I "pop in" so to speak (excuse the pun), as he showed up one afternoon looking for a little baby love.

"That one's a video" she said.

Turns out the camera was on video mode and she hadn't realized it. So when she went to take the picture it took a few seconds of film before she stopped it to snap the photo. That junky in me hit play and for those few fleeting moments he was moving and smiling.

I remember last October desperately asking a family friend if they still had those VHS tapes of him skiing, from way back when we were kids and our families used to spend weekends together in Ellicottville. While they promised to look, turns out they had just finished cleaning out those closets and the tapes had been one of the first things to go.

Rumour has it my sister has a handful of videos of him. And even though that junky nags for me to break in to her house like an addict and rummage through the camera and computer for another hit of PJL home movies, I don't want to see them.

Because I like the idea there are still memories of him I have yet to make.

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365 days ago today my dad died of a massive aortic aneurysm. And I miss him every day. But his being there now makes me less scared about what's to eventually come. And for that I'm grateful.