Today is just another Tuesday.  Except it is not just another Tuesday.  Today marks the 20^th time another year has rolled around without my dad.  Another year that I mourn for what might have been.  What should have been.

I don’t grieve in the same way I did 20 years ago.  Time has softened my emotions.  Grief that once was sharp and raw has now become dull and scarred over.  Events, smells and sounds can bring back the memories, but they no longer have the power to cripple me as they once did.

Mostly now, I look at Ava and regret that my dad is not around to see this wonderful human being that has his genes running through her veins.  Sometimes she makes a face, and for a second, I see a flash of my dad.  What I would give to see Ava sitting in his lap, eyes wide with excitement as my father told her one of his famous stories.  I wish I could see her giggling with delight as he tickled her the way he once tickled me, as we curled up on our sofa together.  I will never get to relive my childhood with my father through Ava.  My past and my present can never collide.

My biggest regret, the source of most of my sorrow, is that to Ava, my dad will never be more than a concept, an abstract idea.  A faded image in photographs.  She’ll never hear the sound of his voice or know the warmth of his hug.  No matter how much I talk about him, or show her pictures from the past, he will never be as real to her as he is to me.  He won’t be any more real to her than my own maternal grandfather is to me.

My mother’s father died long before I was born.  Although she spoke of him often, he remained a black and white image in a picture to me my entire life.  In his pictures he looked stern and gruff.  But my mother called him “Daddy” and told tales of him playing with her and her siblings.  She spoke about how much he changed after the war.  The war being WWII, and my grandfather having been drafted into Hitler’s army of old men and children toward the end.  In my head I see flickering black and white images, the grainy film of a news reel.  That is all of my grandfather I have.  I never once met him, or even spoke to him.

It pains me that my dad missed out on being a grandfather.  I hate the fact that Ava’s family history will be told through me, missing a generation of information that my father would have provided.  There is a piece of my family’s fabric that is missing.  Today I remember.  I mourn.  Tomorrow, I begin weaving another portion.

I miss you, Daddy.

I remember it was gray.  It was January, after all.  I don’t remember if it was cold.  I remember the minister speaking in generalities about my dad.  He didn’t really know my dad all that well, seeing as how my dad was not a churchgoer.  He simply hadn’t been able.

The one memory that stands out clearly from the day we buried my father was that I prayed hard to just get through the day without breaking down.  So many eyes were upon my mother and me.  Everyone looking at us, whispering in hushed tones.

I remember scattered fragments of the days between when he passed and the day of the funeral.  Buying dresses to wear.  Picking out his suit, fending off a meddling grandmother and aunt who wanted to do things their way.  Sitting in the funeral home, selecting a casket and flowers for the top.  Always my mother looking at me and asking “What do you think?”  What do I think?  I think I’m 16 years old, I shouldn’t be doing this.

But I was.  I was making arrangements to bury my father.  Making phone calls.  Taking phone calls.  One in particular stands out.

My father in his last few years had begun research into his father’s side of the family.  A side we knew almost next to nothing about.   To his delight, he discovered we had cousins in Texas, and one of them was doing a genealogy trace as well.  They spoke on the phone on numerous occasions and the Texas contingent even traveled to Mississippi to meet my dad.  I remember my cousin calling a few days before the funeral asking to speak to my dad.  I had to tell her he had passed away.  She was so shocked she hung up on me.  She called back a few minutes later, apologized for hanging up on me, and said they were on the way here.  They must have broken many speed limits along the way, but they made it to Mississippi in time for the funeral.

So many people with that same look in their eyes.  Sad.  Unsure of what to say to us.  Classmates, whose parents pushed them to say something, mumbling “Sorry”.  So many “I’m sorrys”.  Too many.  What do you say to that?  “Thank you?”  I hate that part of loss.  People tip-toeing around you, you feeling like every word, action, expression is being watched, judged.  If you dare laugh at something, you’re not appropriately grieving.  If you cry too much, you’re overreacting.

After the funeral we all gathered at my grandmother’s house.  She was in her element, holding court.  You had to know my grandmother to really understand. Honestly, that’s whole separate post.  But needless to say, she thrived on drama, and the bigger, the better.

One of my cousins came over to fix one my grandmother’s space heaters.  Despite the fact that he and his wife and son lived next to us for five years, and my parents helped him out on numerous occasions, he did not come to the funeral. He had nothing to say, except that he could not understand why we were all so upset, since we knew this day was coming.  I was, and still am, speechless that someone could utter words so unfeeling.  I have not spoken to him since that day. I don’t know that I ever will.

Life for me, of course, marched on.  I went back to school, feeling more shunned and out of place than ever.  Now, not only was I the poor fat kid.  I was the poor fat kid whose dad died.

Once my dad passed away, apparently so did any obligation his family felt towards my mother and me.  We were isolated, with the exception of two of my dad’s sisters, both of whom lived out of town.

I graduated high school the following year, with only my mother and a great uncle in the audience to watch.  The first of so many events to happen with out my dad present.

I have a good life now.  I’m in my 30s.  I’m married and I finally have a family of my own, with the birth of Ava last June.  I sometimes wonder if I would have the life I have now, had he lived.   I know in my heart I wouldn’t.  I would not have made the stupid choices I made at age 19, getting married to someone old enough to be my father.  I wouldn’t have ended up divorced 8 months later.  I wouldn’t have charged headlong into yet another relationship with someone once again 20 + years my senior only to end up alone again.  I wouldn’t have purchased that computer that led me to a fan group where I met the man I am married to today.  I probably wouldn’t have had the guts to pick up and move across country.  I might have had kids, but I wouldn’t have my Avacakes.

I know my life thus far is what it is,  in large part to my dad’s passing.  The choices I have made, the grief I carry inside me shaped who I was, who I am, and who I will be.

It’s been almost 20 years now.  Dad has been gone longer than I knew him.  The grief has faded.  I no longer think about it every day.  The big events bring to mind the wish that he was still here to be a part of my life in a tangible way.  I know it’s ok to say goodbye.  It’s ok to let go.  And I will do so.  Every day for the rest of my life.

The call came at 2:30 am Thursday night/Friday morning.  Within minutes my mother and I were speeding toward the hospital.  I don’t think either of us said a word during the short drive, each of us lost in our own private terror.

We arrived at the hospital and reached the floor of  my dad’s room.  We are put into a waiting room.  Told to wait.  Speechless, we sit, and we wait.  Each minute seemed like hours.  A nurse comes in to tell us the doctor will be in shortly to talk to us.  She cannot say any more.  We overhear that the doctor and nurses are “still working on him”.  Sound carries very well in places like that.

Finally the doctor arrived.  The news isn’t good.  Dad suffered a massive heart attack.  The nurses found him on the floor of his room, in between the bed and the wall.  He had been unconscious long enough, his heart not beating, that we knew there was brain damage.  Even if he survived, which the doctor told us was probably not possible, he would be basically a vegetable.

Fear and grief makes people react differently.  Some people cry, some don’t.  At that moment, I yelled.  Screamed. I was angry.  Afraid.  I was angry that we had been told to rush to the hospital, only to be put into a room and wait.  I was angry at the nurses, whose station was right outside my dad’s room, did not hear him fall, yell for help.  I ranted, I raved, I threw a box of tissues (the only thing I had on hand) at the doctor.  I was a pissed off, terrified teenager.  I remember my mother trying to calm me down. I am not proud of how I behaved.  I apologized later, feeling terribly foolish for having caused a scene.   I was afraid.  What would we do?  How would we survive? Life without my dad?  Even though we knew his disease would cut his life short, we were not prepared.  Is anyone ever really prepared to lose a loved one?

Dad was transferred to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU).  It was hours before we were allowed to go in to see him.  By then, I remember phone calls being made at the pay phone.  Our neighbor, Linda and her husband Jim.  Aunts, uncles, cousins.  My grandmother.  Plans were being made to travel.  We knew it was the end, it was just a matter of time now.  I was so torn about going in to see him.  I wanted to, but I didn’t.  I didn’t want to see him that way.  I wanted to remember him the way I saw him last.  The night before when mom and I left to go home.  He was sitting up in bed, smiling.  As we left, I said “I love you, Daddy.”  I didn’t often say it anymore, being a teenager.  I don’t know what prompted me to say it that night.

In the end, I went in.  It was like being a dream.  That couldn’t be my dad lying there with a machine making him breathe.  Tubes everywhere.  That terrible ashen pallor to his skin.  I kept thinking I would wake up.  This wasn’t real.  It couldn’t be real.  How could he be so alive just hours before, so normal, and now this?

So much of that night is a blur. I’ve blocked out the memory of it, and the next day for so long,  details are fuzzy now.  I remember at some point our neighbors, wonderful friends, showing up.  Mom insisting that I go home with Linda and get some sleep.  My aunt and her son arrived some time early that morning.  It was light out now.  Another dreary winter day.  Colder than usual.  So cold.  Linda drove me home to shower and take a nap.  She would be back to get me in a few hours.  I showered.  I cried.  Tears mingling with water until it wasn’t clear which was which.  I dressed, crying.  I sat on my bed.  Crying.  The first time I had really cried.  Rocking back and forth.  Sobs that racked my body.  In that moment, I had never felt more alone in my life.

Now, what happened next you can dismiss as sleep deprivation, or a hallucination brought on by grief, my mind playing tricks.  As I was sobbing, I felt a hand on my shoulder.  I whirled around to see who the hell was in my house.  Had Linda come back?  There was no one there.  I can still remember the warmth of the touch.  A firm, but gentle hand.  I took a deep breath.  I stopped crying.  I felt at peace.  I slept.  I’ve never been a super religious person.  I believe in God, but I hadn’t given the Almighty much thought up to that point.  But I believe at that moment, God saw my heartache, felt my loneliness and reached out to me to let me know I was not alone.  That I could survive this.

That afternoon I went back to the hospital.  Not much had changed.  More relatives were there.  The doctor came in and spoke to Mom and me, telling us that soon we would have to think about making the decision on removing Dad from life support.  He had no brain activity.  Several times they had tried to see if he could breathe on his own.  He could not.   I felt like I had been kicked in the gut.  I did not want to make that decision.  How could I make that decision?  I know my mother would have deferred to me.  How I know that is a whole other post.

My mother wanted me to go home with Linda (our neighbor) and sleep that night.  She wanted to stay there, close to Dad.  I protested, but my aunt said she would stay with my mother, for me to go, get some rest.  She told me I would need it.  The coming days were going to be hard and my mother would need me to be strong.  So I left.  To this day, I regret that decision.  Not that it would have made any difference.  Dad did not know of our presence.  We were not allowed to stay with him.  Only fifteen minute visits once per hour.

But I was not there when he died.  I was not with my mother.  I was at my neighbors house lying on an air mattress watching television.   We had been home about an  hour when there was a knock at the door.  Linda opened it and I saw my mother.  I knew there was only one reason she would have left that hospital.  She looked at me and said “We lost him.  He’s gone.”  She had no tears.  I grabbed her, holding as tight as I could.  My daddy was gone. The man I loved and respected most in the world had left me.   What now?

Tomorrow, Part Three

The call came at 2:30 in the morning.   I had a phone right next to my bed, so I was the one that answered the phone.  I was sixteen.  It was the hospital, asking me if this was the family of Mr. Ausburn.   Even through the fog of sleep, I knew something was wrong.  My heart was pounding, it felt like it had jumped into my throat.  I yelled into the phone. I kept asking what is wrong.  I got no answers other than we needed to get to the hospital immediately. By then my mother was awake and I had to tell her something was wrong. I didn’t know what, but I knew it had to be bad.    Within minutes we were speeding toward the hospital, terrified of what we would find.

Hospital visits were frequent for my father.  He was often hospitalized several times a year, often for weeks at a time.  This visit was no different than any other.  It was completely different than any other. He was due to be released that Friday, January 12.  Instead, it was the day he died.

It was January, 1990.  My father had been hospitalized for the umpteenth time.  He had a lung disease that he was diagnosed with when I was 3 years old.  I never knew my dad as a healthy person.  He was always ill.  Throughout my childhood, he grew progressively worse each year.  At the end of his life, he was pretty much housebound and required oxygen twenty four hours a day.

His disability was hard for all of us.  It was hard on my mother, who, for 14 years  had to take care of him, me and our home, which included an acre and a half of land.  It was hard on my father, whose mind was still sharp and wanted to plant gardens, tend to flowers, cook meals, take his daughter fishing.  His mind wanted to do so much more than his failing body would let him.  He had to be content with watching the gardening shows on PBS on Saturday and Sunday.  Watching someone else dig in the dirt, get excited over a new tomato hybrid.  He loved food and cooking.  But he could no longer get in the kitchen and cook the meals he once did.  Instead he and I would pour over each new copy of Southern Living, him picking out the recipes he wanted to save and me clipping them out and organizing in his notebooks.  I would paste them in, he would go back later and make notes in his own handwriting.  I still have those notebooks.  If there ever was a fire, they would be one of the few material things I would make a point to grab.

We bought fishing poles when I was about 10.  We had moved to the country the year before, and my cousin, who lived up the road, had a small pond on his property.  Dad promised to take me fishing.  For years those poles sat, gathering dust.  He never felt up to going.  I would pass by them almost daily, glancing at them as I went by, a tangible reminder of his disability.

He loved to tell stories.  On warm summer nights we sat on the front porch, Dad in his rocking chair, enthralling and terrifying me and my cousin who lived next door.  He would tell us stories about how the lightening bugs we saw were really wolves eyes. Other times he would try to convince us that the tadpoles we caught would really turn into large snakes.    My little cousin often had to be walked home.   He also regaled us with funny stories from his childhood.  He and friends of his were apparently quite the cutups in their day.  Fun that seems innocent now, sneaking into watermelon patches, swiping one or two to eat.  Freaking out teachers by showing up dressed in their mother’s clothing.  By all accounts, especially his friends,  he was a very cheerful, happy soul.  He loved nothing more than a good joke, a good time.  He still loved those things, but the good humor was tempered by pain.  Mental and physical.  I cannot imagine how it must have been for him.  To be trapped in a body that would not do what your mind wanted.

One of the highlights of his life in later years was grocery shopping.  It was a hassle for my mom to take him, as it required the wheel chair, oxygen and someone to push said wheel chair.  Plus, my mom was the type who gets in, gets what she needs, and gets out.  Not so for my father.  He wanted to go through each isle, looking for new products, new ingredients to try.  A trip with him to the grocery store could last hours.  Once in a great while we were able to go to a larger city, 30 miles away, which had an even larger selection.  Needless to say, you could plainly read the joy in his face as he went through each isle.  It was his adventure.

He loved visitors.  Being pretty much housebound, he couldn’t visit his friends and relatives.  So when they came to see him it was very special.  He would holler at mom to put on a pot of coffee, and bring out whatever cake, pie, jar of pickles, etc. that was the latest creation from our kitchen.  Often visitors came loaded down with fresh fruit or vegetables from their gardens.  He looked at that and saw a challenge, and was grateful for the food that would help feed his family.  I looked at it and groaned, only seeing work ahead for me.  How stupid I was.  He often took homemade goodies to his doctor when he went in for check ups.  The two of them would sit and talk about peppers and tomatoes far longer than the actual “exam” took.

Dad almost never disciplined me.  He spanked me once.  He cried harder than I did.  I remember hearing him tell my mother that he would never ever do that again.  And he didn’t.  He yelled at me only one time that I can remember.  He was disappointed in what I had picked out for a Mother’s Day present.  I think he was yelling as much out of frustration that he couldn’t do the shopping himself as much as the present itself.

He was my companion, my friend, my cuddle partner on the sofa.  I was his little girl.  A definite Daddy’s girl.  That phone call was the beginning of the end of our journey together.  I was a frightened sixteen year old, driving into an unknown, unsettled, discomforting future.

Tomorrow, Part Two