You Can't Go Home

My dad died 10 days ago.  I had over 8 years to prepare for it.  I wonder if I had known 8 years ago that he and I only had this short time together if anything would have changed.  I'm not sure that any knowledge of the future would have propelled me to do something else to be somewhere else, being someone different.  Any additional knowledge probably wouldn't have changed a thing.  Although the flap of a bird's wing might alter the course of the greater history of mankind (or so some say) I still believe our individual fate is sealed (much more Calvin).  You are fated to end up in the same path no matter what.  I don't think there is another reality where my parents never met and I was never born.  Knowing that this is how it would always be doesn't make the loss hurt any less.

Tiny cracks in my heart have only been made worse and I just feel weaker.  I have been losing people since I was 10 and age has made me no better at it.  Part of me feels like I've been holding my breath for years and I can finally breathe again but at the same time this relief doesn't quell my sadness.  I worry for my mother and brother and myself.  Even though, like I just said, my fate already awaits me and whatever is going to happen, will happen, I still can't help but entertain thoughts of a past where I had a father these last years to fight with, to help me,  or to push me.  To have a future where I had a father to walk to me down the aisle if I was ever to get married and be a grandfather to any future children of mine.  What a rip off. 


I'm not angry at God or with the world though.  I'm pragmatic, I want to pick up and move on. Still, I feel robbed and bitter about where we have ended.  I'm weepy and I hate that. I think the world is at a loss without my father. The world he left behind is a better one for having him in it.  Of course when you die people say all the best things about you.  But people didn't say my dad was just a nice guy or a good guy...they say he was a great man, a loyal man and an honest one.   I think those things are the best compliments...why be good when you can be great?  My father pushed me, he made me angry, he made me laugh, he fed the fire of adventure that has always burned inside me.  My father taught me to tell the truth when it counts and to help those who need it but to always give a hand up and not a hand out.

My father told me once that all he every wanted was for me to be happy.  It seemed so odd for my dad to tell me at 18 that I should do what makes me happy.  Here I was, for most of my teenage life, thinking that my parents' main goal was to make my life a living hell!  But the one good side of being sick is being able to see the big picture and see what is really important.  But it isn't like the movies would have you think it is.  You don't wake up and all of a sudden see the world as it really is and become a different person.  My dad was always a fighter, so there was no calm acceptance of his fate and despite the knowledge that this would always happen to my family I'm not going to just give up and become a shell either.  I'm not an empty shell person, my parents would NOT be cool with that. 

I'm lucky to have had him in my life even though I didn't get enough time.  I wish I had been able to grow into an adult and have actual talks with my dad and have him yell at me for not putting antifreeze in my car.  I hope that each night that I stay in my parents home that I'll wake up and come downstairs to see him there with Tuner, but I don't.  In Garden State
(don't mock the reference) Zach Braff's character says, "You know that point in your life when you realize that the house you grew up in isn’t really your home anymore…all of the sudden even though you have some place to put your shit, that idea of home is gone…or maybe it's like this rite of passage…you will never have that feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, for your kids, for the family you start. It’s like a cycle or something. Maybe that’s all family really is: a group of people that miss the same imaginary place."

My parents house is still a great place but it isn't my home anymore.  I'm so, so lucky to have my mom still but my home was where my mum and dad were, and he's gone.  You can't go home anymore but you can grow up and make your home your own, however you see fit.  So I'm going to be strong and make my home, I don't know where it'll be or who I'll end up to be, but I hope I end up strong like my dad.