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I just erased the first five lines I�d typed in here, not wanting to subject you all to my extreme whining. Apparently, I put my crankypants on this morning. Heh. Word does not like �crankypants� as a word. Too bad, Microsoft. Bite me!
Anyway�
Public service message to the women of the world: Although you�re never too old to dress stylish, you do hit a point where you�re too old to dress trendy. Please keep that in mind when looking at the ribbon-bottom cropped flare pants next time, would you?
So yes, I�m in a day-after-Thanksgiving-I-ate-too-much-and-am-still-in-a-food-coma-but-I-had-to-come-to-work-anyway mode. Lucky for everyone around me. Maybe my blood sugar is just low now or something. Or maybe I should just pack up and go home.
Thanksgiving itself was remarkably nice. The food was normal, and quite tasty. My cousin was pleasant and carried on a conversation without looking like a deer caught in headlights. My aunt was thrilled to have us there. Everything went smoothly. I�m very glad we went.
In the car on the way home, though, my mom sighed and said, �It still just didn�t feel like Thanksgiving.� I know exactly what she means.
The phone rang in the middle of dinner, an old family friend calling to wish them a happy holiday. Funny. For the rest of my life, phones ringing in the middle of holiday celebrations will always make me think of my dad.
After he and my mom split up, he would always call on holidays just as we were sitting down to dinner. I would have to work to keep his plaintive tone from ruining the afternoon for me. I�d think, �If being away from us makes you so unhappy, why did you leave in the first place?!�
He�s now been dead for nine years, but I still think it will be him on the phone, every holiday, every time.
It got me thinking about the day he died.
I�ve mentioned in here before that we weren�t on great terms when it happened. Between my visit to California in April and his death in August, we talked four times. The night before his heart attack, he called my house and left a message on the machine. �Hi Jay, it�s your dad. Just calling to remind you that you still have a father. Love you, honey. Give me a call when you get a chance. Bye.�
I stood in the kitchen, overwhelmed with anger and sadness and guilt. I made a conscious decision not to call him back and went to bed.
The next day, I was supposed to go to the mall with Jill in the early part of the day and then to see Sophie B. Hawkins in New Hampshire with my friend Mark. Jill was going to a party at HSBF Scott�s that night, a birthday celebration I hadn�t been invited to, as Scott and I weren�t together then. I don�t believe we were even speaking. It had been a rough summer.
I left the house in the Chevette and went to pick up Jill. When I pulled in her driveway, she came out to the car and said, �Your mom just called. She needs us to stop back there before we go.�
Figuring that she�d decided she needed something in a store we�d be in, I turned around and drove the two miles back to my driveway. Jill and I walked up the back stairs, laughing. I stepped into the kitchen to find Mom and David standing in each other�s arms near the phone, their faces ashen.
My first thought was that something had happened to David�s father, who had been sick for several months. The words my mom spoke to me were so incongruous I couldn�t make sense of them.
�Jennifer, we just got a call from Ginny in California. Your dad�he had a heart attack in her shower this morning. Dad�s dead, honey. He died.�
Lots of that afternoon is a blur. I know that Mark showed up and then left again, concerned about my state of mind but annoyed that our plans had changed. I know that at some point, someone�maybe me�called Carla, who came over to sit with me. Jill left briefly and went to Scott�s, but then came back, having told him what had happened. He showed up later, too. Much later. It was an odd moment, and the one that did eventually bring us back together again. I wasn�t sure he�d come, but I recall being awfully glad to see him.
I know that Jill, Carla and I watched Drop Dead Fred that night. It was a good movie for a night when I had no mind at all.
It took me days to truly understand that he was gone, much longer than that to accept it, and years to come to terms with it. But even now, like I said, when the phone rings in the middle of Thanksgiving dinner, I still think it will be him on the other end.
There�s a piece of me that still believes he didn�t really die, that it was some big farce he cooked up to escape his past. This feeling is fed by a lot of different things, some fact and some imagined. But truly, if it were him on that phone, I don�t know that I would be surprised. Angry beyond belief, stunned and overwhelmed, but not surprised.
But then I think that it�s just too awful. How could you do something like that? I have to believe he really died because the alternative is unacceptable.
Even so, it doesn�t quite go away.
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