how to miss your dad

As you cook dinner
Glance at the phone.

A moment later, you will think:
It’s that hour. The best time to call him

It’s ok. Just say to yourself I miss my dad.

In the weeks after he’s gone, driving, you notice
you’re not in the mood
for a podcast
Tell Siri to play Dad’s Favourites
A playlist you put together
After a slow day in August

With you at his big desk, and he by the window
When you tell him Bernie said when you were young, you made her a mix tape of classical music. For beginners.
What would he put on such a tape?
He considers this
You take his Mont Blanc pen
You take his yellow legal pad
You jot down the names that he gives you
Tuck the yellow scrap in a safe place
Do this casually. It was just a conversation to while the day
Not the last time to ask.
In August, there’s still talk of treatment
Of recovery
Still plans to be made and trips that might be taken.

As you drive, Dad’s Favourites don’t match the mood of I miss my dad
Ask Spotify to play the most loved classical pieces.
You prefer this selection.
That’s not a cheat.
The gift wasn’t the list,
But the way he made you love music

In November, three weeks after he’s gone, you have a long drive down the country
At traffic lights, open WhatsApp
Scroll back to before April this year
Before his messages began with the good news and bad news
Listen to one that came before:
Dearest Daughter. This is your father! I tried to reach you. Call me back as soon as you get this!

You would roll your eyes
The way he wanted his calls returned right away
No matter the hour
He wanted to be certain you had made that reservation
The one for a dinner that was weeks down the road.
“Dad, this isn’t urgent. I am in bed.”
“Don’t be ridiculous! You should not be in bed at this hour.”
Even though it was after ten
And people are allowed to go to bed then.

He got sick on his birthday and died on mine.

That’s not exactly true, but it feels true.

What really happened: You found out he was sick on his birthday.

He’d been feeling awful all week.

You were in Seville.

A town Dad wandered as a child.
By himself.
During the summer months, staying with the Opus Dei nuns that his mother trusted to keep him safe
Going to movies in the hot afternoons. Practicing new words in Spanish.
He had an ear for languages
A mind that learned by heart
He would grow up to be an encyclopedia on matters of history.

For some years, he would keep a small apartment in Seville, with good friends nearby.

That Sunday, at the end of March, on his birthday, you carry Dad’s list of
The Exact Things One Must do in Seville. Which he had capitalized.
You plan to ring him later to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY
Before you can, your brother texts:
Dad is canceling the rest of his vacation in Peru.

So, he had been sick a few days by then
Before you find out on his seventy-seventh birthday.
You stand on a cobbled street in Seville, reading a weird message from him:
Do not call me. Stop texting me. I am in bed.
You stare at the phone
Worrying
So un-Dad-like

In the days afterward, he tells you that when he got to the hospital the doctors told him he might have a parasite.
With all that international travel, maybe it had been there for years
That could explain the small shadow on the brain.
And the bad things that happened when he felt sick in his hotel room:
The loss of balance.
Forgetting how to tie his tie.
The noisy chatter inside the head.

And while he didn’t die on your birthday, seven months later,
That was the Friday he was taken from his home in an ambulance,
on a two-hour drive to the clinic,
where they realized his brain had hemorrhaged a few days before.
And that would explain the agony that began to devour him.

It was time to show mercy, it was time to sedate.

The day after your birthday, on Saturday October 25 at 6:00 pm Eastern Time,
before you go to Logan Airport to catch a plane,
you hear his voice for the last time. From the depth of your mobile.
There are not enough hours to make your way back to him.
His words are so slurred, they are not like words
Even so, you hear the shape of what he is trying to say
I-LOVE-YOU-TOO
Like the last roar of a sea lion

Then, sedation

His body laboured half a week longer.

But the way you see it … he got sick on his birthday and then died on mine.

During the twilight – those hours that stretched
from the overnight flight, through Sunday to Monday to Tuesday to Wednesday, until you wake up on Thursday to see a missed call.
During that liminal time, when you knew it was over, but in a way, he was still here,
you carry your phone into bed.
You fall asleep listening to recordings of a not-slurry voice.

In the daytime, you open old boxes to gather the photos
Asking cousins for more
Building a slideshow for the inevitable …
a service that will land on All Hallows’ Eve.

Flicking through Dad-photos:

Large. Handsome. Big smile. Crinkled-happy eyes.
Often at table.

In restaurants – just he and I.
Or he and I and Claudia.
Or he and I and Mom.
Or he and I and Jimmy and Bernie.
Or, at Christmastime, he and I and our everyone.
My brother, Mom, Sam and the kids, and the other much-loved characters who made up our family

Dad with dessert.
Dad with grandkids flopping themselves onto his burly shoulders
Dad with me who does not like to be photographed, never quite able to crack the full smile.

How to miss your dad:
Go to those same restaurants
You will have to anyway, since these are your local ones.
Arrive early.
Sit by yourself, imagine he’s there.

Dad always arrived early.
His aversion to lateness, possibly diagnosable

You never let him collect you on the way,
because he’d be banging on your door while you were still blow-drying
your hair.
He thought it was hilarious to freak you out by suddenly popping up at the window.

But now, you can go early and sit there
alone in a restaurant
to have a few minutes
to miss your dad

That first week, let the manager hug you.
He heard the news.
He can not believe it.
Your Dad was so vibrant
And the last time I saw him – so completely alive.
What the hell happened?

Read all the messages on RIP: Names you know. Names you do not know.
Both cheer you.
You are so glad others can see the force that he was

Above all, Continue to Marvel:
Just as you marveled all summer…

Who knew Dad could muster such calm and perspective
Dad, who passed on to you his great fear of sickness, of any kind.
But then, when the real kind came, was strangely serene
Not a state he was known for.

You say this even though he was still that other person too – the one prone to crisis.
When his legs stopped supporting him and he took to the bed, he would
YELL your name (but mostly, Claudia’s) over and over and over and over
and over until you appeared
What the hell was taking you so long in the other room?
Hand me that bottle of Coke

In October, his big body squished into a wheelchair, sipping from
an enormous cup
(with the straw that made him mad), as we waited,
he and I,  
In the sitting room
for the others to finally be ready for our trip to the coast

As we stared out the window, he said “It’s not like you imagine.
When it comes, all the things you once thought …
well, it’s not like that.”

Continue to Marvel, that his philosophical self
agreed to stay by his side
As his eyes grew more baby-like: wide-eyed and wondering

Continue to Marvel,  that in conversations, he became your old dad again,
for all the months he was sick
the one you were able to talk to.
Not the one who ever since COVID became fixated on Trump This and Trump That, the Stock Market, and in lighter news, his lengthy assessment of what’s good on NetFlix, before he just couldn’t help himself and went back to the Great Evil of Trump.
“Yes, Dad, I know. I watch the news.” 
“Well, it’s fine for you,” he would say, “but what about me! I can’t believe I have to watch this guy ruin the last years of my life!!!”
And you would think: Dad – you’re not that old.
But then he got sick.
And his Trumpitis faded.
We were back to
What is happening with You
And when I would ask, Are you OK?
He’d offer his favourite refrain:
“Well, people tell me I am wonderful!”

Continue to Marvel that Everyone seems to know.
Without your saying. You miss your dad.

How to do that:
When you feel like it,
watch the slideshow, play the music, read the condolences

How to do that:
When that’s not enough,
write some things down.

How to do that:
Who knows?
No one
Everyone.