A REKD GIRL

When I was a teenager, I think my family thought I was crazy. Looking at me with pause as I’d go on about my wide-eyed dreams, about moving away from our small town and building a life in a big city. Whenever we gathered for holidays or birthdays, I’d jabber on about how I wanted to leave Michigan and try living in New York City and Los Angeles. And by some twists of luck and surprise resolve, I did almost exactly that. Only instead I traded those cities for San Diego and Chicago. And it was so, so much more than I could have imagined.

But when dad got sick, there was no choice, no hesitation and absolutely no regret – I had to come home. He was the thread I needed to weave my life around, to be there for him and our family, and to bring comfort to myself by doing the only thing I could, be home. Life as I knew it, or wanted it, had to stop for a while – and it still hasn’t completely righted itself since.

I was always very decisive about what I wanted my future to be. I knew I’d move, and travel, and succeed. I always saw that future, and was resolute in creating it. But now things aren’t so clear. I look to the future and don’t see it looking back at me.

Just before dad’s diagnosis, I’d felt the wear from years out-pacing what I’d known growing up on a quiet island just south of Detroit. And in my heart – felt Michigan is where I’d finally put down those forever roots. Maybe start a family, and spend my remaining years in the company of the one I’d always known. But now I’m not so sure.

This past weekend, I went back to Chicago to visit – and it was like stepping back in time. Remembering what life was and could be before cancer changed everything. Being the girl I was before grief muffled much of her joy. It was liberating in the recognition that life could still be what I make it.

I’m still not sure what I want, but I think I have a greater awareness that maybe it’s looking different than what I imagined for so long. And that it’s OK to get back to living life for me, whatever that is.

All I know is that the most beautiful and tragic thing about life, is that anything can happen – which is both exciting and scary in its promise. All we can do, is surrender to the idea that it will.

It’s been very busy. Partially an awful busy. So many hardships that are much more important than mine and what I’m doing here, that I thought of taking a break and shelving this blog for a while. It’s still tempting. But I remembered I made this promise, not only to whoever finds themselves here, but to myself that I would keep chronicling this journey in hopes it brings some solace to someone, anyone – even me. And this journey is still so far from over.

I’d written a few entries and saved them, letting time come in and give space to all that’s happened recently. But I’ve decided to pull them out, dust them off and start posting again. So here we go:

Dad didn’t care much for things, but he loved his toys. Big boy toys that fed his adrenaline – boats and cars and anything fast enough to part his lips into a wild grin, really. But above them all was the 1972 Corvette Stingray that he bought new all those years ago. It’s a beautiful deep blue, like his eyes that would widen with excitement as his heart beat and the speedometer would rise when he drove it.

It’s become like another family member over the years, and has been the stage for so many wonderful memories. When my brother and I were fussy babies, dad would pile us in and drive around the block – letting the deep hum of the engine sing us to sleep. Growing up, I’d beg for rides, and when old enough myself, would take it for drives around the edges of our town. I remember one time taking a friend out and stopping as we came around the curve of an open road, telling him to grab a hold of something and nailing the pedal – feeling the back end kick as it jumped forward. Nothing felt more freeing than being behind the wheel of that car.

When my brother turned 16, dad gifted him the keys, and on his last day of high school he burned around the corner leaving tire tracks behind him. It was the greatest gift dad ever gave him, passing down to his son what he loved most.

For mom, its where they started so many memorable trips, and maybe where they first partly fell in love. He’d drive to her side of town just to take her to lunch, and she always knew he was coming when she heard that familiar rumble pouring out from under the hood as it grew louder from down the street.

Even in his last months, dad would spend hours researching from his recliner – looking at toolkits and tracking down parts so he could restore it. He wanted to breathe new life into it, and for a long time I think that kept him going – the promise of something to finish, and enjoy.

You could say we all really love that car.

But it sat in the garage ever since dad’s funeral. We parked it outside of the church where we honored his life last year, and my uncles – his brothers – drove it to the luncheon, coming in hot with the engine steaming and dad’s ashes seated beside them like he would have wanted. One last ride. But none of us had the heart to touch it since. And it was up to my brother, it was his car now.

But a few weekends ago, he dug her out. He uncovered it and washed it in the driveway. And then, we all drove it.

There’s an endless amount of firsts after you lose someone. Most – honestly – are awful, but once in a while it feels like coming home to a piece of yourself and the life before that you thought was lost. It’s therapeutic in an unexpected way, flirting with nostalgia and slipping into the memory of happier times.

Getting in the driver’s seat, I could feel the soft leather hug my skin. It smelled the same as I can remember, and when I turned the key the roar of its engine took me back. Driving it by the coastline, and feeling it lurch forward with the light touch of the gas pedal made my heart widen with gratitude. I was grinning like a child. It’s as if I could feel the decades of joy my dad felt with his hands at that same wheel. And I haven’t felt as close to dad in a long time than I did sitting there.

It’s a bridge through time, that little blue car. And while I made laps through the neighborhood streets, the thick blanket of clouds rolled back – and the sun came out. I’d like to think that dad was happy to see it back on the road. Happy to see his kids delighting in what he loved himself.

Standing there, looking at it under the sun in the driveway, mom, my brother and I stood in silence for a while, wiping away tears. Mom broke the silence turning to him asking “how did it feel?” And saying what dad surely knew all along, my brother started to smile, “It’s hard to be upset in that car.”

And it’s true. It felt so damn good.

It was a bunch of wild personalities colliding over the course of our young lives. Through our families, sports, classes – something undoubtedly pulled us all together and by high school, this crazy group of nine girls found each other.

We’d band together at sleepovers, and bond over boys. We’d spend hours just driving around and laughing nearly ever weekend as teenagers, and through college we’d roadtrip to see one another when we could. It’s been an adventurous and beautiful ride, growing up together.

As we got older and nine silly teens bloomed into independent young women, our relationships with one another would change – strengthening and softening over the years as we moved onto different parts of our lives.

But lately, we’ve been brought together more often – just not in the way we’d hoped. This last heavy week, especially. Another set of unpleasant reasons, in what feels like a never-ending string of unpleasant reasons, that brought us back home and to each other.

Collectively in the last two years or so, we’ve been through some of the worst experiences to weigh down hearts as young as ours. We’ve lost so much – parents, marriages, some things that are too painful to share, and nearly one of our own. Our group chat that should delight in nostalgia and funny pictures has been a relentless reminder of the hardships we’ve faced. And there have been some truly raw and painful moments.

It’s insane the intensity and frequency with which bad things keep happening, and I don’t know why.  These are good people, with big personalities and even bigger hearts behind them. And the strength and grace with which I’ve watched us confront some of the worst times of our lives is a testament to that. This is a group of some very tough women.

And I think some of that strength comes from knowing we have each other to lean on.

It’s unique, what we have. That the friends we still turn to now are the ones we’ve turned to all along. That the people we’re closest to has changed so little as we’ve changed ourselves. It’s what reminds me how lucky we are to have the friendships we do. I know that for myself, those friendships have been a tremendous comfort since losing dad. These women have walked through fire with me, opened their hearts more than they have already and then brought joy back into my life. I’m forever thankful for that, and this sisterhood of sorts.

And with that in mind, in the wake of more things we shouldn’t have to rise above, but will –

I am so proud to stand beside you then, now and always.

When we were young, my parents would take my brother and I to see fireworks over the fourth. Or we’d gather with friends to fire our own from the edge of the dock. And when the roaring stopped, and the last flickers of light would fade against the night sky, I would wait to spot the small canister parachutes floating along the water top. I’d drag dad by the hand and excitedly point to where I saw them bobbing, while he’d lay belly down on the dock and reach out to grab them as they drifted in. The fourth of July was always a happy time we’d all spend together.

Two years ago, dad had just started treatment. He was feeling strong, finally upright from a bought of infection that sidelined him after surgery. Really, you couldn’t tell he was sick. He was able, happy.

So that holiday weekend, we gathered with friends for cocktails and walked to the shoreline to watch fireworks arch over the riverfront. Most of us, myself included, found spots near the top of the hill to sit, as crowds had already gathered and rolled out blankets at the seawall’s edge. But dad, he weaved past couples and huddled families to find a spot of grass near the water, where he stretched out on the flat of his back as the fireworks started.

Watching him, I felt a sobering tug from inside. This strong knowing that I needed to make memories with my father however, whenever I had the chance. I needed to embrace moments that may not come again. That was a hard lesson to learn in those final months.

We didn’t mean to, but our family naturally fell into traditional gender roles growing up. I would spend more time at mom’s side helping clean the house and the set the table, while the boys tinkered in the garage or worked in the yard. For as alike as we were, dad and I didn’t have as much common ground to bond over. And when we’d spend time together, it was so often the whole four of us that there wasn’t much time alone just dad and I. It’s added this surprising, complicated layer to my grief – feeling like I had the least amount of time with him.

So that fourth of July, two years ago, I got up and walked down the hill – and with saying nothing, laid down next to him curling into his side. He didn’t say anything either. I just felt the comforting tug of his arm as he pulled me in closer, and laid my head on his shoulder.

For 20 minutes, we watched bright colors splash against a velvet canvas and never said a word. And when it was over, and everyone stood to go, we waited. Not this time to find parachutes at the edge of the dock, but because it was just really lovely.

It started with little squiggles on the wall. When I could finally, aptly hold a pen between my toddler fingers, I’d push it up against the paint and drag the tip across. With no intent or real understanding for what it meant at that young age, I would write – on the wall. It drove my mother nuts.

As I got older, squiggles turned into words, and later poems and stories in a number of journals. So much so, that I’d wake at all hours of the night and hop excitedly out of bed to kneel against my nightstand under the lamp, and scribble away. I’d try hard to keep quiet and shut the door so the light filling my room wouldn’t wake my parents, but crouching there I’d always here the moan of the floor outside of my bedroom as mom or dad peered in to check on me – wondering what had me up at 3:00 am.

You could say, writing has always been a part of me.

So often it’s the best way, if not the only way, to give my dizzy feelings some relief. To make sense of all I think. Watching those words scrawl across a blank page as my hand races to keep up is incredibly calming.

So it was no surprise that I turned to my journals again in this last year – almost to the day. It had been just over a month after losing dad, that I first flopped across my bed and reached for my pen. June 17th, 2015. And for more nights since than not, I’ve done it over and over again. It’s given me a safe, often ugly yet forgiving, place to cry and scream and wonder without feeling silly, or hopeless, and to maybe say things I couldn’t say out loud. It’s given me perspective on things I barely knew I was feeling. It’s been life changing, and saving, truly.

This week, when I turned on my nightstand lamp, ready to write again – I flipped back to that first entry. I got lost in reading words that bore from a different time, but were dangerously familiar. It made me grateful.

Sometimes, in the unending journey that is grief, it’s important to take a reflective pause and realize how far you’ve come. And sure, I’m walking a path that’s never linear. These emotions recycle unto themselves and come forward unexpectedly. But I’ve come a long way. The anger has lessened as the pages fold over. The questions are no longer shouting from a voice within. I’ve had moments of buoyant joy. Chronicling this process has helped me see that. I can get through this. I am getting through this.

In a fitting coincidence, there was enough room for my last entry a year later. A new year, a new journal. And while there, and certainly here, will continue to be a place to express myself, I want this new phase, this new journal, to be one of hope. To reflect on something I was grateful for that day, to share happy memories of dad or call fondly on what I loved about him most. I want it do its part, however small, to break more light in.

With that in mind, I want to thank everyone who has been encouraging me here. For investing in my writing and rooting me on, always with the careful understanding that it isn’t easy. And not just for me, but for anyone reading these posts – I know they broach heavy topics and remind people how much hurt losing dad has left in its wake. So thank you for supporting me. Thanks for standing by a girl who still crouches under her nightstand lamp after all these years. I can hear the moans of your weighted support just outside my bedroom door.

For a long while, it didn’t register to me that Father’s Day was coming. Not until I walked into stores that wrapped their walls in “gifts for dad!” posters, and saw the barrage of commercials selling grills or ties or tools. It’s strange how these things slip away when the reason to celebrate them is gone.

And oddly, I’ve struggled to write this. I’ve sat, frustrated, staring at blank screens. Deleting, re-writing, arranging paragraphs, and feeling like what I want to say is somehow out of reach. How do I articulate who he was as a father, and how he was a father to me?

There’s a lot of pop psychology around the influence a father has in the life of his daughter. How that relationship can define a woman more than most. And for me – it did. But maybe not just who we were to each other – a father, and a daughter – but because we were so much alike.

I’ve asked mom many times in the past few months what dad would say about me, how he’d talk about me to her. I’ve often wondered who I was to him when I wasn’t around. Everything fell apart so quickly in the end that we didn’t really get to have one last conversation – so I try to fill the absence of those words in whatever way I can. And I suppose you can’t ask of someone in death, what they weren’t in life. Dad always gestured in action, so I ask mom.

And since he wasn’t a man of many words, what she tells me is how he’d always boast “That’s my Toots!” with an enamored grin. Whether I’d stood up for myself at work, or won a race at a track meet, or got in trouble in a way that actually made him more proud than angry. And that’s all he’d really need to say – because it said it all. I was his Toots, so much an extension of him.

I think he prided himself on being a pillar of strength for us all. When I lived in San Diego, mom would collapse against my chest as we hugged at the curb of the departures entrance. She would cry as I pulled my suitcase out of the house, into the truck, and as we pulled up to the airport. But dad, he’d give me an enormous, composed hug as I’d hide my welling tears behind sunglasses. Or so I thought.

Not once, in all the times I put 3,000 miles between us, did I see him cry. But that’s because he didn’t want me to. What mom told me, years later, is that when she’d get back into his truck after watching me safely walk into the airport, she’d find him leaned over the wheel with tears winding down his face. Because his Toots was leaving.

That’s what I want my heart to rejoice in this weekend, that special bond we shared. Last father’s day was probably the worst day we had since he passed. It had only been a few short weeks, and my mom, brother and I were all grieving in intense, different ways. It was raw and incredibly painful, not knowing what to do for ourselves or each other.

So for this father’s day, I just want to be Toots. I want to remember all of the amazing ways he helped piece me together throughout the years. How he understood me better than most, stepping aside to let me grow up, and screw up and get back up, always with the encouraging words I needed.

It was him that talked me down from hysterics in a dark stairway in Chicago in the middle of the day. It was him that gave me confidence when I faced decisions that I struggled to make. It was him that stood behind me, unflinching, whenever I moved cities, or jobs. “There’s very little in life you can’t change,” he’d always say – with the comforting notion that life could be whatever I make it. Just make it good.

And yet, his words still offer that old, wise advice. I can change that he’s not here. I can meet Sunday with gratitude and love for who he was. I can fill my heart with the joy of 30 amazing years. I can share stories of him. I can. I will.

After all, that’s his Toots. Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

After a fickle few weeks, Michigan finally gave us summer. Rushes of warm air and a searing sun that lingers into the nighttime. It’s my favorite time of year. 

It was always dad’s too.

He was a summer baby, just like me – both born in August. And he loved nothing more than watching the backyard come to life as the temperature rose. And taking swan dives into the pool, after working hard outside. And sitting on the boat bobbing along with a cold drink and his favorite people.

I think that’s why this time of year can feel as hard as it does, because he loved it so much. And why we were all surprised to be a bit more sensitive and upset than expected over the last few weekends. Because he should be here, enjoying it.

And like most of these warm, inviting weekends – we gather with friends. Friends that really have become family. Friends that we and dad spent years growing with. And when we all got together, over evening drinks or an afternoon brunch, something really lovely happened. They missed dad as much as we did.

Sometimes it’s hard to look outside of your own grief, but in the last few days I’ve realized how mine is just a ripple in an ocean of unrest. So many people miss dad. So many people are grappling with the hole his loss has created in their lives. So many people welcome us with tears in their eyes and toast to him when the sun sets over the water. Because they loved him so much.

It’s a comforting feeling, how much he’s missed – knowing he wasn’t just someone special to us, but, simply, just someone special.

I try not to let losing dad be the center to which my life revolves, but it does in likely more ways than I’m even aware of. And I don’t want it to overshadow all of the things I am, to myself or to other people. I don’t want people to think it’s all I can talk about and live within. I try not to. And there are times I can hear dad’s booming voice in my head “Give it a rest, Toots!” – like he would whenever I was relentless. But there are still moments when people turn away when I talk about it, or tense up when I say his name – and that can really hurt.

So these past few weekends, it’s nice to know that a lot of people are still healing. I’m not just a girl missing her dad. There are so many girls, and boys, and family, and friends, and neighbors and co-workers and sometimes perfect strangers who are missing one hell of a guy.

And in a strange way, that does make it easier.

A few days after dad died, my friend sent me this quote: You never know how strong you are, until being strong is the only option you have.

I think about that a lot – how strength has given me balance when nothing else can. My mom, brother and I have all held our composure during moments I thought would leave us broken beneath their weight. It was like that again last week, when the first anniversary of dad’s passing eclipsed us on an otherwise average Thursday.

Like most things this year, the anticipation was worse than the actual event. Holidays, milestones – we’d see them coming and brace for the riptide of emotions that would pull us under. But they wouldn’t. Those moments would come and though our hearts were heavy, we’d laugh, and smile and remember. It was always the preceding days that were hell. That’s how last week was anyway, when I felt numb and detached on Tuesday and Wednesday and cried into my pillow.

But when Thursday came, and we piled into my brother’s Jeep – there weren’t any tears. And they didn’t follow us as we drove north, spending a weekend away sitting lakeside on a beautiful, but chilly beach. Somehow, strength ushered us forward.

That’s not to say it’s always that way. It took me so long to utter the words “dead” and “died” when speaking of dad, versus the softer “passing” and “gone” that I thought would lessen the pain. And there’s so many times I don’t want to be strong – even now with a year that’s passed. But it feels almost uncomfortable to fall apart now.

It’s not malicious, but as time passes – people forget. Or they may expect you to have evolved beyond the confines of your grief. They see you smile and think everything is fine. It’s made me self-conscious in an unexpected way. I stay quiet, because the truth is a lot of what I’m feeling is so ugly that I’m afraid being honest about these feelings, even to just to say them out loud, will break my heart open and the pain will flood right in.

When I am around family, I don’t want to upset them. Around friends and coworkers, I didn’t want to seem needy. And around strangers, I didn’t want to be inappropriate. So I smile, crack jokes and laugh when something is hilarious, as I always have.

It’s strange territory for everyone. Friends and family don’t know what they should ask, if anything at all. They don’t want to upset me, but don’t want to be insensitive either. And most times, I don’t know what to say. My relationship with my grief is constantly changing and, truthfully, it takes some rediscovering for how to be around loved ones, and I’m sure they with me.

But beneath all of the insecurity and fear, there’s strength – even when it’s faint. There’s a fire that burns hotter as things get harder. That’s human nature, after all – to rise when you’re trembling.

I think of my dad in those hopeless moments, and how he’d tease me whenever I was brazen – typically when I was giving a guy a hard time, or being aggressive at work. “You’re hard, Toots,” he’d say, dragging out the word “hard” in an almost Southern drawl. I know he’d say it to knock some sense to me, but I’m pretty sure there was a sense of pride behind it, that he raised a tough cookie.

But dad was hard too, and I’ll never stop being a tough cookie, just for him.

One.

One day turned into many and, somehow, one year has come and gone without dad in it.

I’ve gotten a lot of advice in this past year. Some of it was truly helpful, and some of it felt impossible. But some of it I heard time and time again – particularly that the first year is the hardest.

And they were so right. And wrong.

Things moved quickly when dad was diagnosed. He’d been having bouts with indigestion for months, but it would come and go so mildly that he thought nothing of it. Maybe a stomach bug. Maybe a lingering flu. Maybe.

Then one weekend he got very sick, violently ill. Sick enough that for as doctor-averse as he was, he made an appointment. That was on a Monday. On Tuesday they scheduled an x-ray, and the results so alarming, they scheduled him for surgery to remove a tumor first thing Thursday morning. Life changes very quickly that way.

The night before his surgery, I felt the weight of what was coming – I just didn’t want to admit it. I told myself over and over again that things would be fine, as I watched the sunset melt over the Chicago horizon from my balcony. And when I went to sleep, I prayed. I prayed that this wouldn’t be the last night I would lay my head down knowing life as it always was. I let my mind turn over comforting stories and statistics in an effort to put it at ease. I lied to myself in the only way I knew how, that if I couldn’t picture life without him in it, that it simply couldn’t be.

When my phone rang the next morning, once dad was out of surgery, and my brother’s voice broke over the line, I knew. I was already flying home later that day to attend a friend’s wedding over the weekend, and moved it up as early as I could to be with everyone. It was one of the longest, loneliest days. I shuttled back and forth to the bathroom several times while we waited to board, falling apart in some dirty stall in Midway airport. I forced a smile to flight attendants when boarding the plane and hid behind my sunglasses. And when mom picked me up I cried the whole way to the hospital. We both did.

He was starting to come out of anesthesia when we got to the room. When we stood by his bedside he looked up and asked the question we didn’t want to answer. “Did they find something?”

The next year that followed was a blurred mess of doctor appointments, hospital stays and the agonizing slow down of dad’s life.

Although there were happy moments mixed in there too, I try not to think about it.

I especially don’t like to go back to those final days. I haven’t made peace with them, and the past year hasn’t done much to remove me from them. The pressure of his hand when he’d squeeze the fingers that I’d curl tightly into his palm. The hum of machines and weighted steps of hurried nurses throughout the ICU. The look of dad’s face when we did all we could do for him – get him home – as he looked around and took his last breath. Everything is still so painfully vivid.

So I try to bury those memories. Dad wouldn’t want to be remembered that way.

Everything since has been experiencing life in a foreign, unwelcome way. A year of facing long-standing traditions without dad there. Of going through birthdays, and holidays and important days with a weary heart. And the awful everydays that sneak up. The random Tuesday evening when all I want to do is call the house and hear his voice. Or a sunny Sunday morning when I wish we could share a quiet moment on the deck.

See, what people don’t tell you – is that time hurts as much as it heals. That even though the natural rhythm of life has dragged me forward, the growing time that’s passed makes it more permanent. That even though a year is behind me, a lifetime without him still stretches ahead.

For a long time, I was intensely angry. It just took up residence where so much joy and gratitude had been. And, sure, there’s still some there – but it’s receded over the months. Months where amazing people have come in and reminded me how wonderful life can be. Family, friends, even perfect strangers – they’ve helped break through even the most gloomy of days.

It’s hard to explain how I feel. It can still be such a tumultuous swell of emotions. But at its core, I just really, really miss my father. Its an ache that never stops, but my hope is that maybe as life tumbles on, other joys will help ebb some of it away.

But what I wouldn’t give for just one more. One more year. One more day. One more conversation. One more hug. One more moment.

One.