My dad passed away 4 months ago. Since then I have learned a couple of giant lessons. Lesson #1 is that you never truly understand the pain of losing a parent until you do. You may be able to imagine the hurt, or sympathize, but it can never compare to the real thing.
Lesson #2? That no matter how expected a death - even if you know it is better that someone die than go on living the way they are - it doesn't hurt any less. I don't know why this came as a surprise, but it did. My dad had been dying for years but only after he was REALLY gone did it seem like yesterday that I was sitting next to him on a Sunday morning reading the comics as he read the front page. When there is still the possibility of making new memories, you don't think much about the old ones. When that opportunity is truly gone, you cling to the past with desperation. Visions of my dad surround me and they are visions from 25 and 34 years ago.
A perfect example. . . My dad was in the Army and later in the National Guard. He used to polish his intimidating, black combat boots daily. I remember being 4 years old and having my entire arm swallowed by his boots while I brushed back and forth with my other arm. My father would coach me from the sofa. Neither my dad nor I had polished a shoe in 30 years when he died but a couple weeks after his death a smell would take me out. I walked downstairs in a perfectly good mood to be greeted by a haunting, unmistakable smell. As I entered the living room I saw Todd polishing his shoes. Ky and Eric were watching him intently, absorbing the task. The vision, the odor, the sound of the brush was enough to make me run back upstairs where I sat in a chair doubled over in tears and in pain. Nothing can prepare you for that kind of memory and that kind of ache. When you lose a parent, you don't only remember the last conversation you had with them, you remember every conversation you've ever had with them. You remember 15 year old exchanges with pride and with gratitude and with intense sorrow.
I honestly expected to feel some sense of relief when my dad was "gone". Over and over I would say, "I could deal with his death better than the roller coaster of his illness". Everyone (that has never lost a parent) kept telling me I must feel better knowing he was out of pain or in a better place, or blah, blah, blah. Truly, since his death, there are times I feel nothing but a hole in my stomach that is connected to a hole in my heart. When I told my sister how surprised I was at the sheer physical pain I was feeling, she told me she felt the same way. This meant a lot to me because I cry for everything while she tends to be a rock. My sister is also the only person able to tell me something that actually made me feel a little bit better. She told me that she felt better knowing that no one was poking at him and touching him and moving him anymore. That thought has helped. No one is going to understand the loss of a parent the way your siblings do.
I learned Lesson #3 this week. Holidays without a parent suck. I never understood how people seemed to get so sad around the birthday of someone who has passed. Birthdays have never been a huge deal in my family. A phone call and an occasional card is about all we do. Yet last Tuesday all I could think about was not having a dad to call on June 10th.
I would love for this Father's Day to be about the incredible dad that Todd is. Lord knows he deserves far more that I could ever deliver for being the father that he is, but right now all I can do is think about a Father's Day without my own dad. I wish I could write a heartwarming tribute and tell you all of the incredible things my dad taught me . . . maybe tomorrow I will be able to. But tonight, with an hour left until Father's Day, the first without my own, all I can do is feel the loss.
