The Ghost of my Father

Dad’s been dead over thirty years now. I’m only 43, but I’ve already outlived him by four years. I can remember the phone call that came in from the local police department that cold January night; the questions and the fear that came with it.

Sometimes I still talk to him, though he never answers me. Sometimes I feel like he is watching me and regretting the choice he made that night. Or maybe he is admiring the man I have become and encouraging me to keep working on my little projects and showing up for my family like he never could.

He did his best. I know that today. Life is hard and it swallowed him. I’ve been there myself. That cold, dark, isolated place where nobody could possibly understand. The fear of the future and its vicissitudes. The endless and seemingly fruitless search for meaning in a world that is at least as indifferent as it can be rewarding.

Sometimes I call my brother or my mom when I want to talk to dad. Our relationships are healthy and supportive, but its not quite the same. I need advice. I need guidance. I need to be told to stop worrying about my feelings and go take constructive action.

The image is burned into my mind of him laying in the casket, makeup smearing, eyes glued shut. I can still smell the formaldehyde too. Disgusting! I hate it more than any other smell I’ve ever encountered. It forces me to remember in detail the putty in his head wound, the suit he was buried in, the wrinkles in his withered hands.

Worst of all is the lesson he taught me that fateful night in 1994. That death is an option. That it’s ok to give up. That family means nothing when confronted with deep sadness, regret, and pain. It’s a lesson I’ve spent the intervening years unlearning, pondering, battling against. Life gets really hard and I’d like to just be done sometimes. But there was another lesson he taught me in that same fateful moment, that the pain doesn’t go away, it just passes to those who love you.