Dear Dad: My Dad IX, Will Things Be Okay?

Dad,

It’s been super cold the last week or so. We had an ice storm, and we may be getting snow tomorrow. I haven’t taken down my Christmas tree yet, because I still haven’t felt the joy I normally would. This cold makes it almost feel like Christmas should, but there aren’t lights out when I am driving, and I feel like I was robbed of Christmas this year. Between you dying and the current administration doing everything in their power to dismantle our country and any semblance of the freedoms I believed we had, it was hard to feel the normal joy and excitement. I think the kids had a nice Christmas, and I think I haven’t taken down the tree because I am trying to find some joy in a bleak time. The rest of the decorations have been down and put away for weeks. You have been on my mind a lot. Recently, when your picture scrolls onto my digital frame here at my desk, your absence is very palpable. But it also comes up because there are so many times I want to ask you a question, or maybe even just show you something.

I will finish reading Lonesome Dove later today, and I wanted to ask if you had read it or if you watched the mini series when it aired. I, for some reason, feel like maybe you did, or rented it at some point. These are the kinds of random thoughts I have. I was talking about car races with a client recently, and I remembered all the times we went to races, and all the weekends we watched them at home together when I was younger. I hope I am doing a good job at making those kinds of memories with my kids, and I am sad for them that they won’t get to make more with you. But also, I am scared. I don’t know who I am supposed to call and ask if things will get better now. I feel like I can’t ask mom because I worry she is grappling with her own grief, without trying to share it. But let’s be honest, I have been closer to you as an adult, and probably shared more time with you doing things than I did with her. I still don’t feel like a grown-up, despite the whole having kids and owning and running my own business. But I find I still need an adult. I still want someone to tell me it will be okay. Or to tell me they had similar fears at some point in their life. Yet I find I am also scared that if you were here, you might tell me that democracy was never in this much jeopardy and that things have never been this bad for you in your lifetime in terms of our government.

I was talking with the kids last night about World War II and how Pap served and got a Purple Heart that I now have. I shared with them that you were in the Vietnam War, and they asked if Pap got drafted, and I didn’t know. I’ve found I wanted to ask you, but I’m not sure you would have known either. In my reflections, I have found myself wondering what he would think about the current state of things, too. I wonder if his faith would be a bedrock for him or if he would fall victim to the Christian Nationalism that is corrupting us. I wonder if he would have tips and tricks for standing up to fascism since he took a bullet for our country doing exactly that. I also wonder why we have moved away from programs that allowed him to amass a small amount of wealth in his lifetime despite his limited education, and why we now favor corporations and companies over the people who genuinely make up our country. All of the men I was able to talk to and gain wisdom from are dead now, and somehow I am the man who is supposed to know answers? I barely feel capable of tying my shoes some days, and now, as one friend recently put it, I am the patriarch of the family? I know we were never a patriarchal household, but I also feel the weight of all of this.

I figured, for once, rather than trying to write all my feelings out as a blog, I would just write you a letter. I miss you, and I wasn’t really ready for you to go. I didn’t want you to stick around and suffer, especially once it became obvious you were ready to go. But I genuinely thought this time last year that I had so much more time with you. I believed you would be around through the kids graduating from high school and maybe even beyond that. It feels in some ways eerily similar to how things were when Juno died. I thought I had more time, and when that illusion was shattered, I find myself asking if I wasted the time. I wondered if I should have made different choices with my time and energy. I am trying my best, and some days, hell, maybe most days, I feel it is not enough. It’s just really tough, and I wish you were here. Even if you didn’t have any wisdom, the way you could sit and be present was enough.

I miss you an awful lot on some days. Other days, it is less so because I am so busy with other things, and I am distracted. But when I sit down and think about it, the tears still come. The loss is still there even though it has been over six months. I’ll do my damndest to make you proud still, and to try and reassure my kids and even my clients, even though I am scared. I guess maybe that was how it was for you when our country drafted you and sent you overseas shortly after high school. I can’t imagine how terrifying that was. But you did it because you served with honor. Maybe that is the thing I need to remind myself of in all of this. I can be terrified and out of my depth and element. But if I work with honor, then I am still on the right path. Thanks for listening, and for always being there, Dad.