A Chance Meeting with My Dead Dad

To Understand Him was to Lose Him

“Darling, it’s a rebirth. When your parents die, you are reborn.” — Some Woman (I can’t remember her name, sorry)

But, I’m in my thirties. Who’s going to give birth to a 5’7” adult? Apparently, folks, I give birth to…me. I find the strength within myself to push a new me out of a metaphorical vagina. Take the placenta and turn it into lemonade.

Here’s my TL/DR tag: Lemonade’s always been too sweet for me.

My dad died three years ago. Depending on the dinner party I’m at, it was from a lifetime of drug and alcohol abuse, or, a MRSA staph infection. Both are true. Then, five months ago, my mom died after a swift bout with Lewy Body Dementia. Wasn’t I just talking to her? How did this all happen? Maybe in my rebirth, I’ll find out.

Anyway, I’m left grieving like a savage. A wild woman without ties to the world anymore. Unhinged, if you will. I don’t have kids or parents. I’m shifting. Nothing is the same, and it never will be again. The two people who loved me unconditionally, truly no matter what I did, have left the planet. And, I feel weird as shit.

My sister texted me, “Life just feels like a big chunk of love is untouchable lately.” That about sums it up.

In my grief, I’m left thinking of my dad a lot. At my age, he too was an adult orphan. I so desperately want to talk to him and tell him, I get it now. I understand your rage, your pain. You hear me, dad? I get it now! Come back, let’s talk!

But, to understand him was to lose him.

We took him off life support on July 12, 2016. I spent the next twenty four hours matching my breath to his — breathe in, breathe out. He’d pause — wait is he dead? Breath. Pause. Ten seconds. Is he dead? Breath. Pause. Twenty seconds. Is he dead?

Then, just as the nurse warned us, his hands and feet turned purple, his breath sounded like marbles in a jar, and we heard the “death rattle”.

He was dead.

I ran out of the room. He was out of that body, as far as I was concerned. Gone. Finito. Adios. This was my first encounter with a dead body that wasn’t in a coffin. A body I watched die. It was not like I imagined. I thought I’d stumble on some feet sticking out of a pile of leaves, run and find the cops. A murder! I watch Law and Order. But, here was my dad’s dead body. Cold. Odd. Empty.

Five months ago today, I saw another dead body. My mother’s. It too was cold. Odd. Empty.

It’s too raw to talk about my mom. I’m not sure I even believe she’s gone. But, my dad…

Oh, dear. Life without my dad. He was my buddy. Loud. You could feel him in a room. He covered a lot in his lifetime. Rich. Poor. Semi-famous. Semi-infamous. Hilarious. Mean. Wives. Kids. Private planes — the kids these days call them PJs. Celebrities. A marketing guru of roadside signs begging for money. You can say a lot about my dad, but you can’t say he didn’t live.

One Christmas we were staying with my step-mom’s family. Bless her heart. Seriously. My dad’s riches were gone. I think he might have been a janitor at the time, truly a jack of all trades. My dad was talking to a lawyer. Someone’s husband. The guy was cocky and turned his back on my dad while he was in mid-sentence. Had this happened to you, you might tell your friends, “God, what an asshole.” Maybe you’d have a lawyer joke. But, my dad was silent.

The next morning, everyone stood in front of the friendly house, Christmas decorations dotted the lawn, and looked at the asshole lawyer’s vandalized sports car in shock. Two of his tires had been slashed.

I know, the way this story is going, you think my dad did it. But, my dad said to the asshole lawyer so genuinely, “Who’d slash your tires right in front of the house? God almighty.” I thought, wow, who indeed?

I got into my dad’s truck, pushed the trash aside. He lit up a Marlboro Red. I exclaimed, “Holy cow, can’t believe his tires got slashed!” My dad, without a beat, pointed at an ice pick on the floor bed of his truck and said, “If you really wanna fuck ’em over, you slash all four.”

You were right. My dad did it. But he only slashed two of them. Guess he didn’t wanna really fuck him over, you know?

A renegade. A cowboy. A drug addict. A dad. Etc. Etc. Etc.

My dad’s dad, my grandpa, died of a heart attack when my dad was in his twenties. And then, get this, in my dad’s thirties, his step-dad, a wet-brain alcoholic, shot and killed his mom.

Bam.

My dad was a savage, unhinged like me. But, I don’t think anyone told him he could rebirth himself to greatness. And, if they did, he was too fucked up on heroin dreams or cocaine nightmares to listen.

I feel for my dad. He was born in 1948 in Denton, Texas on a farm. He grew up with the silent cowboy code. Men are men are men are men. Feelings are weak are weak are weak.

That was dug into him from day one. We all know it. “Grown men don’t cry.”

I go to therapy at least once a week. I’m in a grief group. I have a team of professionals and a group of friends and family who can relate and are supportive. I have tools I rely on to get through this. I will be fine. I will be reborn.

But, what about my dad? He died long before 2016. He died many deaths in his lifetime. Did anyone give him articles about grief? About rage? What about a therapist recommendation? Dear God, did he just try to do it himself and “Man up?”

The rage. My dad was full of rage, hence the tire slashing. I have been full of rage too. We’re raging bulls. He raged in China shops and destroyed things. I rage by throwing a banana and screaming, and ultimately, sobbing to my boyfriend, my therapist, my grief group, my doctor, my friends, my sisters.

I rage and it’s transformed. He raged and it compounded.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, there’s a big problem. Angry men are tearing shit up. Ripping apart our landscape. Frankly, I’m afraid of a lot of men. They’re unpredictable, and their destruction can be life threatening. A rape. A murder. My step-grandfather took a gun and shot my grandmother, my aunt, my cousin, and himself. My dad imploded. I don’t know his other transgressions besides the tire slashing, but I do assume there were more.

What am I trying to say exactly about toxic masculinity? About the connection between, “Be a man,” and that phrase being the exact opposite of a healthy life mantra?

My dad loved me to pieces. He was charming and had the quickest wit of anyone I’ve ever met. He had a big, we’ll call it Texas sized, heart. What was he supposed to do when his world told him to be quiet and strong when he was full of pain and rage? He did a lot of drugs, and I guess that worked for him…until it didn’t.

When he was dying, as a grown man, he finally cried out something he needed to say for a long time, “Mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy!” He wanted his mommy. I do too.

In a twisted fantasy, my dad and I find ourselves sitting next each other on a train, our worlds colliding as adult orphans. We’re both the same age. We’re both grieving. Here’s what I might say:

Dad,

This pain is ridiculous, right? I can’t believe you didn’t tell me how painful it is.

Listen, I understand. This isn’t fair. Life isn’t fair. It’s mean and cruel, and yeah, yeah, beautiful too.

I hear you, dad. I see you. I don’t know if you let anyone hold you while you sobbed and grieved. But in this hypothetical story, let me give you a hug. It’s OK to cry. It hurts.

Have you tried kickboxing? I haven’t, but I’ve punched the bed. And, I’ve thrown a plant.

Maybe you shouldn’t do the drugs. I know it’s not easy to put them down. It was hard for me too. I want to numb out so badly sometimes. Drink away the pain. But, I lean into it and sob and sob. I call people, and they let me talk, ramble.

That cowboy code you live by? It’s bullshit.

I wish this wasn’t hypothetical. I wish you knew you had options. I wish you knew better. “When we know better we do better.” Maya Angelou said that.

You can be reborn dad. Someone told me so! You learn to parent yourself, and the umbilical cord is truly severed.

I don’t know how to do this. Life without you and mom. I bet you don’t either. I bet you didn’t either.

Past tense. Present tense. Eh, whatever.

Dad, I love you. Your life has purpose. You are important in this world. Your anger is normal. You’re going to make it through this, but you have to ask for help.

I’m sorry. I can’t keep talking about this because I’m messing up my makeup, and it hurts too badly now. This eyeliner was killer to put on.

Sure, dad, I’ll take another hug and here’s a hankie from your schoolboy friend. He gave it to me at your funeral. Said there would never be another like you. I’m jealous of him. He knew you when you were young. Before you lost your parents. Before you started dying a million deaths.

Before the world crushed you and told you to stand and be a man.

And, just like that, this story is over.