I always seem to get the blues on Fathers Day.
I dont know why. My own father is alive and well (well, he is 75 and is having the beginnings of some memory loss issues and physical issues but he is here and right now, he is mostly okay), and a pretty incredible dad. And shouldnt that be enough? Well, yes.
But life is life, and as always, its not that simple, and the fact is my heart always seems to hurt on this day. It hurts for me, it hurts for my husband Nick, and it hurts for my late (I still prefer the word “dead”) husband Don. And honestly, for my best friend Sarah and her husband Julio who are “childless not by choice”, as they refer to it, and the list goes on and on and on.
Most of you know my story by now. But for the new folks reading here – Don and I were married for 4 years and 9 months until one ordinary Wednesday morning when he got up for work and never came home. They found him collapsed on the floor an hour later – massive cardiac arrest at age 46 – non warnings , no illness, no anything – he was just gone, and I woke up to a ringing phone and a brand new life that I didnt ask for nor want.
In the year or so before his sudden death, Don and I talked often about having a family. He started making plans for it to happen, such as picking up a second job so we could pay off bills and eventually move into a nicer/bigger apartment, one that might fit a new addition. I was 39 years old and he was about to turn 46, so with my age in mind, we were heavily considering adoption. Don loved animals and he loved rescuing animals – I soon found out he felt the same way about humans who needed a good home and a family. We laid in bed at night talking and laughing and imagining our kids playing with my brothers son Brian. Don talked about being the kind of great dad to his future kids that HE never got himself. We talked, we dreamed, and we planned.
And then he died, and I still dont know where the dreams you had together GO when one of you dies. I guess they live with the person who is still alive, and they just linger in mid-air or something, never having the chance to come to fruition. About a month after he died, I saw on the search history of our computer, that he had looked up “information about adoption” and lots of things about adopting and the details of it. Don was a research guy – if we were going to buy a new TV, he would research the hell out of it online before making the purchase. If we were going to go on a short trip, he would research all the options and prices online, and then make an informed decision with me about which one made sense. When he moved his life from Florida to NY to be with me and start our life together, he saved up money and researched jobs and cost of living and everything else before making the big move. And so once we started talking about having our family, Don was researching it like crazy, and now those “recent searches” were all that would be left of our family dreams.
It has now been 10 years since his death, and this day still makes me feel sad. Mostly I feel very sad that Don not only never got to be that amazing dad that he would have been, but also, he is dead. He never got to live a full life, and no matter how many years or decades go by, I will ALWAYS feel like he was robbed of more life, and the world was robbed of more him. Some things in life are just not fair, and this is certainly one of them. Im not as sad on Mothers Day because even though I will never be a mom, and that dream will forever linger in the air like humidity, I have come to terms with it. Mostly. And, also, I get to be alive and live life and experience more love and see our nephew and now niece grow up and feel lucky and grateful to still my dad here with me when my husband Nick often goes to the cemetery to “visit” his parents or his sister, on days like these.
So today, I will hang out with my dad and give him the card I got and get him the scratch off tickets he loves, and then my husband Nick will borrow him for a couple hours and take him out for lunch, since he cant do that with his own dad today. And it will be bittersweet and lovely and I will be reminded again that being alive is such an enormous gift in itself – so much so that I will take all the heartache that comes with it, because at least Im not randomly dead and being robbed of more time to love and laugh and learn and evolve ; and to love my people harder and better than I did the day before.
Because we can always do better, and there isnt always enough time to figure that out.
Happy Fathers Day everyone.
I hope that you can all find some little pieces of love today.