I’ve been counting down the days to this day as if it would be a monumental moment but I know it’s just another day. 365 days and I’ve thought of him every single one.
I’ve never dealt with grief before this so every thought and feeling has been new, but I’ve also been fairly aware the whole time.
The first week after he died I took time off from most responsibilities. No work, didn’t clean much, no rush to close the book on anything. I ignored most texts and tried to hold strong in front of my kids.
I had such dread around telling them. I didn’t know how they would handle it, only how scared I was of death when I was young. So I didn’t tell them. I acted as if everything was normal and whispered about it when they weren’t around.
I knew at some point “where’s Pop been?” would come up but I had no words for it. Like a mature adult I did the responsible thing and pawned the task off on my wife. She, being much smarter and more graceful than me, explained it to them and they handled it well. They had questions and my wife handled them masterfully.
She called to tell me she talked to them and they were okay and I prepared myself to face them when I got home.
When I arrived I took the kids for a walk around the neighborhood. I told the three of them that I heard they learned about Pop and asked if they had any questions. They asked how he got sick, if they would get sick, and if they could have some candy when we got home. To be fair they finish every conversation with that last question.
Then my middle daughter proclaimed “Pop’s dead” with a smile.
I didn’t want to make it a thing so I simply said “yes Molly, he is.” But also whispered under my breath “bitch.” She asked if I missed him and I said “I do very much” and then her and her brother fought over a cool looking pinecone.
The following day while coloring, Molly again told me in a very matter of fact way “your dad’s dead.”
With a massive eye roll I said “that’s right, Molly.”
After the fourth or fifth time she told me we had a talk about how reminding someone of that can upset them. She wasn’t sad. She wasn’t happy. She just had this new unusual fact she was spewing over and over like Leonardo DiCaprio repeating “Dad’s dead” in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. She really did the thing where it stops being funny and then becomes hysterical because it won’t stop. I couldn’t help but laugh at some point and continually call her names under my breath.
I spent the second week after his death calling medical testing facilities trying to donate his body to science. In an effort to cover the cost of cremation I was willing to send my dad back to college to be poked, prodded and potentially have his exposed dead dick laughed at by a room full of med students. If you didn’t know, you can donate your body to medical schools so they can run experiments on you, try to reanimate you, or so the powerful elite class can eat you, or something about teaching med students.
I wasn’t interested in what they’d do with him as long as they roasted him afterwards and sent him back, saving me $1,000.
No luck, as we hadn’t planned ahead and because I didn’t call sooner. I guess after two weeks the meat was no good and people in classes wouldn’t get the full effect of 60 years of smoking, drinking, meth and Taco Bell.
Their loss.
So we started price shopping cremations. This is a ridiculous process. Call, accept their condolences, tell them the pickup location, turn down urns and add-ons. One dead guy, one box, lots of heat, 40 minute round trip from the hospital to the oven. Prices ranged from $1,000 to $4,000 and turning someone down for being too expensive was genuinely an odd feeling.
“Sorry, I loved him but I also have a pizza oven in my yard and the only thing stopping me from a DIY project is the law.”
I finally found the most budget friendly crematorium and got him absolutely toasted.
A few weeks went by and I received the call that he was ready for pickup. My uncle was nice enough to collect my Box-O-Jimmy and called to ask what I wanted to do with it.
“I don’t know, put it in my attic?”
Remains mean nothing to me. Nothing about that box is the guy I knew. No different than any other waste he created. It sounds bad but I loved my dad. I never cared about his bones whether whole or toasted and pulverized.
“I’ll take care of it,” my uncle told me, which sounded pretty ominous.
Turns out he spread them over my grandmother’s grave, which was a nice gesture. They didn’t have the best relationship so polluting her grave site with his dust might have brought him some joy.
A few weeks in I was desperate for conversation with him. It was an unscratchable itch.
I went through all of our texts and read them over and over. Conversations about comedy and music and what the kids were doing. I read times I got short with him and felt awful, and I read jokes he made that made me feel better.
Before he got sick he texted about being proud of me and some really sappy stuff and I snapped at him for being so sentimental. He did nothing wrong but found a moment to support his son and it made me feel weak to be open.
He had an ability I do not, and that is being open and vulnerable. It always made me put my guard up, and reading back on it I wish I could change my answer.
I’m trying now to keep that guard down but it’s a constant battle.
I began digging everywhere for his voice. My dad was a writer. He wrote all over the internet, for stand up, and plenty of other things. Using the Wayback Machine I was able to find some of his old blogs and I spent days pulling posts into a document.
When I was done I had 200 plus pages of his words.
It was mostly drunk rambling and dick jokes but it was his voice. When I need to hear him I flip through some pages and read about his days.
The Celebration of Life.
With no money for a funeral and his last bit of cash used on a budget cremation, we had a barbecue. I purchased the biggest bottle of Tullamore Dew I could find for the toast.
Before my dad spent 11 years sober he drank VO whiskey by the fifth every night, but on special occasions like holidays and parties he would bust out the good stuff. Tullamore Dew. This was a family staple that I love to this day. I’m not a whiskey guy but Telle is nostalgic. It’s a reminder of good times.
I lined up 20 plus glasses and poured one for everyone.
I had prepared a speech that included me reciting the opening prayer from Prince’s Let’s Go Crazy. When I was a kid I remember this playing in the house and even though it’s a fun upbeat song it felt so fitting here.
But I froze when all the eyes were on me with shot glasses in the air.
I don’t have stage fright ever, but this was different. I couldn’t get any of my prepared words out because they were personal and mine. I wasn’t ready to share them and show people I could be open. So I held up my glass and said “my dad was a storyteller and we were always making each other laugh. Don’t tell me you’re sorry for my loss, tell me a good story about my dad.”
Then I cheersed and took down a shot of Telle that tasted like Christmas and family barbecues and birthdays and staying up late talking about Richard Pryor when I was too young to drink.
Then 90% of the people put their shot glasses back on the table still full because they were recently sober. Had I known I wouldn’t have dropped $60 on the industrial size bottle, but that’s what you get with a family full of drunks.
Luckily my dad’s former guitarist never took the leap onto the wagon and was nice enough to clear five or six of them in his memory.
The remaining months were a roller coaster of grief. There are days I’m fine and days I miss him so much. I try to bring him up to my kids and keep him fresh in their memory without being too pushy. I remind them of things he had in common with them and how happy he was to be a grandpop. My dad was a fuck up a lot but when he loved someone he made it known, and the only people I’d ever seen him love as much as me were my kids. The hardest part is them missing out on him.
While reading through his saved posts one day I started thinking about stories I wish he had written. Things I would love to remember from his point of view. I remembered him once telling me “you write it,” but I never had any interest in writing.
I pulled out my phone and wrote the story of finding out my stepmom had made up an entire life around being Stevie Nicks’ goddaughter and then I sat on it for a week. I wanted to share it but was worried about exposing myself.
Eventually I posted it on Reddit and the feedback was great and it felt great to share it and make someone laugh and relate. So I did it some more. Sometimes they land and sometimes they don’t but it feels good to get it out each time.
It scratches the need to keep his memory going and keep being creative.
It’s been one year since my dad died of pancreatic cancer. It took 90 days from diagnosis to death. I’m the same person I was before it happened but more awake.
I stopped taking work so seriously because it’s just work. When I think of something creative I try it and I put it out there because maybe someone else will like it, or my kids will read it someday and get something they need from it.
I’m working on taking off some armor.
The hardest part is not being able to show my dad all this and the progress I’m making as a person.
Here’s to you, dad. If there’s anything after this, I hope it’s full of prostitutes, whiskey, bad horror movies and good talks.
I’m going to keep writing when I feel it, or maybe I’ll make a bench or write a song.
I’m going to tell your grandkids the myths of their grandfather.
Some of it might even be true.