My Dad XI, Dear Dad: On Grief, The Masters, and Things

Dear Dad,

I have been struggling lately to find the time to sit down and write. Blogs, letters, books, or even my journal have all fallen by the wayside lately. Between the start of the baseball season and the Masters this week, I have felt your absence much more palpably than in other weeks. I am not sure if it is because today is your wedding anniversary or because we are creeping ever closer to the day when it first became apparent you were not doing well, or even the days when you became more or less immobile. We are closing in on the day that you went into the hospital, and that means we are just that much closer to running out of the “firsts” without you. As I write this, I have the Masters on my second monitor. I specifically have chosen the “Amen Corner” stream because that reminds me so much of you, our trip to Augusta National, and makes me feel a little closer to you.

In the years since I moved into this house, I have worked to downsize myself. That meant getting rid of things and trying to streamline what I kept and what I let go of. There have been so many things along the way that I picked up and decided I did not care about and let go, and now I fear that may have caught up with me. There were things you bought when you went to the Masters without me, and then there were things you bought the time I got to go with you. I have been frantically looking around trying to find a couple of those items, and have not been able to find them. The few other times when I realized I might have gotten rid of something, I have felt a slight bummer, but I was able to move on. But, over the last couple of days, as I have frantically looked for these things, it felt in some ways like I was losing you, too. I know these are just things, and that I have the memory of the time with you. But regardless, it feels like part of you is slipping through my fingers. It’s funny, because I never really kept up with golf, but the Masters has always been special, and it has always, and will always, make me think of you.

As I watch this, part of me longs to be there, basking in the feeling. But another part of me knows that, as raw as I feel right now, I would probably be a blubbering mess there. Just looking at the views, I can feel my eyes burning, ready to stream tears. I don’t believe I would be able to avoid them if I were there. Even when we went, the place felt magical and special. I wonder how much of that is the sense of history and how much of that is that this was something special to you, and something that I grew up with connected to you. I guess the longer you are gone, the more I am looking for those ethereal connections that keep us connected. It still doesn’t feel real, but I am settling into the reality that I can’t talk to you or share things with you. In some ways, that has been the hardest part of all of this. Just the little inane things that I want to show you or talk about with you. I don’t think anyone talks about that with grief. But it is also apparent that now what I am trying to do is go back to the days when I saw you every day and where I built so many memories with you, and I want to recapture that. I know you had largely stopped watching baseball, but you picked it back up in the hospital from boredom. Between sharing time watching it with you last summer and all the years when you took me to games or watched on TBS all season long, and even the game of catch you would do after working all day. I feel the same sense of sadness well up with baseball as I do with watching the Masters. These are the tendrils of you I feel connected to, and I long for that feeling again, but suspect no matter how many games or rounds I watch, nor how many hats or jerseys I buy, it will never be what it was.

I have grown up too much, and the solace I am craving from childhood has passed. The security of knowing my Dad would be there for me is gone, even though it has been decades since I needed or relied on you on anywhere close to a daily basis. There is comfort in just knowing you are there. But that comfort is gone, and I am left watching things that have been so joyful with that sense of sadness and loss. Even though you are gone, you haven’t left, but I want more than just the pictures that scroll through on my phone or digital frame. I want something more tangible than just the memories I have because I know those can fade over time and can be altered by the day. I guess for me I really just want to figure out the best way to still feel the connection to you, and I am revisiting all of your greatest hits, and all of the things that remind me more of you than of anyone else. I bought some bread and pimento cheese today because I never had pimento cheese before you took me to the Masters. I love it now, but it all goes back to that sandwich there with you. I don’t know if there is a consciousness after death, but I hope if there is you know how much you are missed and how deeply your absence is felt. I keep coming back to the Jason Isbell lyric, “It gets easier, but it never gets easy”.