Tell me how long...

8 years since Greg died. I remember when he said, "I'm done with birthday cards and Valentine's Day cards and anniversary cards and all the cards. You just end up writing the same shit over and over again. I'm out of shit to say."

I don't write here very often anymore. I still think of things to write, but I don't make time to do it. Or I feel like it's just the same old shit. But something inside me doesn't feel right letting December 19th go by without a word or two, so here are some thoughts about grief and moving on (forward? maybe just flailing around). When Greg died in 2008, it was just far enough into my adulthood to not be shocking- at least to the general public- definitely I was shocked. There are people who lose a parent in their childhood, then the weird gray area where I lost Greg, and now I'm in the stage of adulthood where I know many more people who have lost at least one parent, where I'm not the outlier in a group of my peers, even if I'm still in the minority.

Watching my friends start or continue a path I've wandered for 8 years now, I'm realizing that grief is even more meandering and circuitous than I'd realized. Why are some days so easy, and others so fucking hard? Or months. Or years. Why are some ways of honoring our dead so comforting, and others feel empty? Why are feelings so changeable, and beliefs, and dreams? And all of those things change not only from person to person, but within each person. They change for me.

The past few months have been hard ones- 7 or 8 years ago I wouldn't have been able to admit that, and even more recently I wouldn't have been willing. It kind of feels like the whole world is going to shit, and I miss my pops an awful lot. I know it's a terrible cliche, but sometimes life really IS like a highway...and I've been poised on the on-ramp lately, watching everyone move steadily by at an excellent clip while I'm inching out and reversing, inching out and reversing, unable to spot opportunities to merge or letting them pass because something felt wrong in the moment. The unfair thing is that when I'm cruising, it feels easy to keep cruising, and I know so well how it feels to be in the zone and moving jauntily along. Getting going again from a standstill is so goddamn rough; merging has always been my bugaboo. At least I know that every time in the last 8 years I've felt like this (the last 34 for that matter) somehow I find a small bright spot of courage and get out there again, and after that initial merge I get to cruise myself for awhile.

It's not a secret that Greg was a drinking man, and then he wasn't. I'm not in the program, but there's an expression that I tell myself often because it helps me keep going, and it applies to so much more than drinking:

I can't, God can, I think I'll let Him.

Those are the actual AA words, but obviously replace God with whatever deity/gender you prefer (I usually say the Universe/it). When I'm really struggling, as I have been lately, I keep going by throwing up my hands without throwing in the towel. Greg didn't raise any quitters.

Love you and miss you, pops.

A Final Toast to Don Filemon

Last night, the world lost a good man. Cesar's dad passed away. My father in law - ex father in law? - what do you call that? The father of my ex-husband (who I call my first husband when I'm feeling whimsical, even though there isn't a second husband, because I like the way it sounds better) is someone I hadn't spoken to in a long time.

The man who welcomed me into his large, complicated family. The man who, when he talked, Cesar said my eyes practically bugged out of my head trying to follow with my broken Spanish. The man who punctuated his talking with the best laugh, that I couldn't help laughing along with, even when I didn't know what the hell was going on. The man who took me into the kitchen and let me lounge against the counter while he cooked the most delicious food. The man who tied special knots into the wrappers of the vegetarian tamales so I knew which ones I could eat.

We fell out of touch, which I understand and am okay with, which I think is what happens in a lot of marriages that end without kids. I'm finally at a point in my life where I have so much gratitude for my memories and time with the Rodriguez family, and so little resentment. It's a long time now that I haven't been married; and yet, we were so young when we got married, I think we completely immersed ourselves in each other's families, with the kind of impact that lasts regardless of years gone by and radio silence.

Cesar's parents came to stay with us for a long time less than a month after my own dad died, and I'm sorry now for how stony and unpleasant I was those days. I remember how many nights I drove to the beach by myself in the middle of the night, to sit on a stone wall, unable to stand anyone, most of all myself. They were patient with me even when I was acting like a brat. The counterbalance is all the memories of happy visits and holidays. Falling in love with Cesar with both our parents' long and complex love stories behind us, around us, and in front of us.

And now, our mothers have both lost their husbands. Cesar and I are both half-orphans. And from a long distance of miles, and time, and silence, I send so much love to the Rodriguez family in their time of grief.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Dead Man

Greg would be 63 today. Instead he's always going to be 55, while everything else changes around me, growing or diminishing, expanding or contracting. The farther away he gets, the more I find myself accepting not just his death, but everything. "It is what it is" grows more deep and yet more simple all the time.

On Thursday, my friend's mom passed away. I don't know her well enough, and I didn't know her mom at all, to become personally involved in her grief, although I took time Thursday night to sit quietly and send her love and calm, because how is it not beneficial to always send out love? Later in bed, I couldn't sleep for remembering that first terrible night Greg died.

Everyone retreated to their corners, glazed with shock and faded around the edges. Sharon, Dillon, and Cesar were alone in their respective beds; I was alone in the bathtub. For hours. I stared at a glass of whiskey balanced on the edge of the tub because I was so terrified to go to sleep, and I was terrified because when I woke up, it would be the first day I was on earth and Greg wasn't. I took for granted that my parents had a past in which I hadn't taken part cause I wasn't born, but I'd never fully understood that there could be a future in which my parents didn't take part because they were dead, until the day was imminent. Somehow I thought that if I could just stay awake, then that day wouldn't dawn and the whole thing could eventually be taken back. The water grew tepid and then cold. Eventually I ended up sleeping just enough to feel shitty.

I'm grateful those early days are behind me. I can see with distance that my relationship with Greg has colored every interaction with every man in my life (romantic or platonic, casual or serious, recent or distantly in the past). I'm sure this is not a unique experience, unless maybe someone who grew up without her father, although even then who knows how absence colors experience as well.

Suffice to say, there's a lot going on in my heartspace and always has been. Although there's one man I'd to address specifically, my Little Man, my closest living link to Greg.

With Dillon, I wonder what he remembers of Greg and how often.  For him grief is both impenetrable and below the surface. I'm often left to guess at what he's thinking or feeling. Are there times that he feels lonely? Betrayed? Angry? I hope there are times that he feels loved, as I have also. It's a hard truth to admit, but sometimes I treat my brother like a mascot, instead of a person with private feelings and diverse thoughts. I forget that just because he appears more surface than most, we're none of us so easily read and understood, and that includes him, and that included Greg, and that includes me.

As Bukowski wrote, "We're all going to die, all of us. What a circus! That alone should make us love each other but it doesn't." It doesn't, and yet somehow there is love - what kind of dumb blind luck is that?!

Here's to the circus! Much love, pop, and happy birthday.

Since you've gone to heaven....

I spent the last weekend oblivious, and it was glorious. No phone, no internet, in the wild blue yonder. I didn't have to watch Father's Day commercials or read Father's Day advertisements or even look at other people's (super sweet, I know- I know!) Father's Day facebook posts with their daddy and/or baby's daddy. I read beautiful books, watched a couple of films about yearning, and moved softly through gorgeous nature.

Then Sunday morning came and whacked me right in the face. We were eating breakfast on the couch when the last song of Brandy Clark's album Big Day in a Small Town came on and it. just. got me. Here it is:
Brandy Clark, Since you've gone to heaven

Clearly this song doesn't apply to my situation exactly (Dilly never even went to college!) but I think she so perfectly captures the emotion of grief, of missing one's daddy and longing to talk to him, worrying about one's family and measuring up to expectations. I got the weeps big time.

You know someone is not only a very good friend, but a truly good human being, when both his arms are tight around you, and you're crying into his elbow, and he  holds you as long as you need without pulling away, and also your mouth is full of bacon because it hurts to swallow.

Then we talked about memory and loss, and people who are gone and where they go, and love. Then I started making lists.

Things that seem (mostly) to get better: playing the countdown + anniversary games (first time since, one month since, x years since), revisiting the old places, only remembering how he looked when he was sick, hearing the old songs, the hallmark holidays, telling someone new in my life that he's dead, looking at old letters, and telling funny stories without choking up.

Things that haven't (so far) gotten better: wanting to share the new songs, people, places; losing the sound of his voice and how he sat, the things that I will never know or ask, the guilt about letting his work molder in a file cabinet, the corroborations and corrections (Yeah, it did happen like that or no, that's not what was said), going to the movies in December, the pangs that are all the more vicious for their unexpected suddenness and sometimes inexplicable arrivals.

Things I hope will never go: the dream visits, hearing his name spoken aloud by people other than me, the sense-memory of matching my pudgy little stride to his long legs.

A day removed and the commercials are gone, along with the resentment. I'm grateful to feel like writing. The memories are back to being more sweet than not. And I can swallow again. Thanks for being my pops, Greg! xoxox