Your Feeble Light

My dad called me early this afternoon and he was in surprisingly good spiritsconsidering he'd had his remaining teeth pulled and was preparing himself for a 6 week stretch of no teeth at all until his gums healed and dentures could be made. He told me that he'd been having headaches and had not been attending his classes. (Those classes one takes after having been in jail for multiple DWIs in order to get one's drivers license back.) Life was going on as he looked forward to having teeth again.

My mom called a little while ago and told me that my dad died earlier - probably not long after I spoke with him - in only the most ironic of ways. He apparently collapsed in the parking lot of his doctor's office.

There are supposed to be various stages of grief and I guess I'm still in shock. Or denial or whatever that first stage is. So many things run through my mind. I remember when my stepmother was in the hospital about 3 years ago and my dad's brother drove up from Florida. The three of us sat around the kitchen table and I listened as my father and uncle reminisced about their father, a man I never met. There were some humorous tales but mostly stories of what a jerk my grandfather was and how my father never forgave him. The two of them sat there across the small table from one another saying, "Remember when the summers we spent on the farm with the old man? And how he'd hit us when he caught us slacking off?" Now my brother and I can do that. He and I can sit around talking about when our old man got our asses up early in the morning to chop wood or help with some other work around the house. If I ever have kids, they can never know their paternal grandfather.

What would I tell them when they wanna know about their other grandpa? How do you explain to a child that a son loved his father but, at the same time, couldn't stand to be around him for more than an hour? How do you explain to your son or daughter that their daddy spent most of his life trying not to be like his daddy? Well, I suppose if I ever have to cross that bridge, I'll do so when I come to it.

I have this picture in my head of my father next to his pickup truck and falling to the pavement. Was he in pain when he died? What were his last thoughts? Did he see the oft-mentioned tunnel with the light at the end of it? Did his life flash before his eyes? Or just parts of it? Did he know what was happening? Did he think of his sons? Did he think of me?

I have emailed a buncha people, called a couple friends as well as my stepsister. She was the only stepsibling of mine that my dad cared for and kept in contact with when he moved. I remember her walking into my dad's house up north when her mother died. Her eyes were red, her cheeks tear-stained, and she made good use of kleenex. I hadn't talked to her in a while and it was quite nice to do so.

It's a curious feeling to be needing to cry but not knowing why. Does everyone feel this way when a parent dies?

Today is the birthday of a friend and I was preparing to send her some electronic well-wishes when I got the call. Looking back, I feel bad to have told her about it when she was, no doubt, having a couple drinks and toasting another natal anniversary. I should have waited til tomorrow.

So the plan for a day in the near future is to sit around with friends and drink a cocktail named after my father. It is a dreadful blend of cheap-ass vodka (preferably Siberian Ice) and Diet Dr. Pepper. Having been an atheist, my dad will, no doubt, be looking up from below. I wonder if he'll be pissed. I wonder what regrets I'll have, how much guilt I'll feel. He did, in essence, die alone. But he's the one who decided to move far away from his kin. And I suppose he could have been even more alone. Still, these are not excuses for having kept him at an arm's distance. He once told me that he never wanted kids. He died

in a parking lot

his sons over a thousand miles away

alone.


I can hear his voice from earlier today. I can hear him telling me what he was going to do when he got those dentures. Immediately after they were fitted, he was going to go to a Burger King or some such place and eat some solid food. And once they were worn in enough, he was going to eat a nice filet mignon. Such simple plans. Such simple plans that went egregiously awry.

Ye golden lamps of heav'n farewell,
With all your feeble light
Farewell thou ever changing moon,
Pale empress of the night.
And thou refulgent orb of day,
In brighter flames arrayed
My soul which springs beyond thy sphere,
No more demands thy aid.