Today would have been dad’s 52nd birthday.
I’ve been interested to hear relatives compare notes on whether my dad is dead or alive in their dreams. It comes up a lot. Mom says she doesn’t dream about situations where dad is necessarily dead, but lots of people have been mentioning some sort of pattern one way or the other.
My brother and i went to taco bell a few days after dad’s funeral. I had a little dilemma about what to drink because while it had been a long time since i’d had soda, it had been even longer since i’d had fast food, and i wasn’t sure how well my beloved unsweetened iced tea would go with gorditas. I’d finally given up my diet soda addiction after a long talk with a coworker about the dangers of artificial sugars (and a very effective guilt trip appealing to my desire to have children one day), but because the soda fountain was closer and I was annoyed with the decision, I ended up drinking a large diet pepsi while Pete and I talked about how badly we’d been hosed.
That night, I had a dream wherein the usual suspects were carrying on our vigil, moping around familiar houses, grieving in our own ways, as we had been during my waking hours. My dad walked into the room casually and smacked me on the shoulder with the back of his hand, half jokingly and half not, and demanded to know why, in the wake of a family tragedy, I really found it necessary to be killing myself with aspartame. It was something he would have totally done.
In that dream, he was alive and dead. Last night in my dream he was alive. Other times he’s not. Maybe there’s no real meaning to be extracted from this and I should let it go.
So tonight we’re going to Christmas mass, like we always did, and celebrating afterward, like we always did. There won’t be any candles to blow out this year, but it will be better to be with family today. Last night we went to the grave and it was shittier than you could have possibly imagined. Don’t die in Michigan in the winter if you can help it.
Also, apologies to all the people I promised to call this week. I have either been with family or too bummed to get off my ass and do anything all week. I leave the 26th and will probably not see anybody, but feel free to call me if you find my flakiness unacceptable and want to swing by at some point.