“father issues”
Dad – you suck
You left me before I could grow up into the man I am today
You never met my kids, or my wife
You never saw that I had my own place and a good job and a car
And that I worked hard to get some place in life
You suck for not leaving any money for me to bury you with
I had to have you cremated and I had to listen to your cousin yell at me about how Jews don’t cremate their dead
But she was unwilling to part with one dollar from her millions, to help out
You suck dad, not because I hate you or hated you when you lived
Actually you were a very cool guy, which I learned to appreciate after I got older
A single parent of 70 plus years for a teenage boy didn’t really have a ton of bright spots
But after, when I could learn to appreciate the experiences of life – I understood you better
But you suck because I do think you were cool but you fucking died on me right before I got married the first time and had your oldest granddaughter
You would have tormented her with that, “give me some sugar!” shit you used to say
But it makes me smile because she would have loved you and squealed when you kissed her cheek
Why did you go to Vegas? And eat that bad lobster tail? And come home and get sicker and give up and not try to get well?
Why does it turn my stomach every time I say that you died of malnutrition? Because you wouldn’t eat
And the nutrient IV only kept you afloat
It wasn’t enough to cure you and bring back your strength
Strength that I admire in you now, looking back at memories
You were always big, but not scary
I remember your permanent five o’clock shadow
You used to dry shave in the mirror in the hallway downstairs
I felt safe with you
We had our little life routine going and I miss it
I miss you
Our kitchen table was covered in a tapestry of papers from your work
Little notes – sometimes one phrase scrawled on an entire sheet of stationary
Your quirks amuse me now
As much as I chided you while growing up – my friends and I secretly poking at your idiosyncrasies
I was just jealous that you and my brother were friends, but I was just a son; not a friend
Why did you wait to have me until you were almost 60 years old?
Why were you so powerful and smart, and fearful and able to keep up with and overcome everything?
And suddenly you are afraid of food?
You must have known the death that would ensue as a result of this!
You must have known that your body would eat ITSELF and your soul would refuse to remain attached to it
I remember the last time I saw you alive
I sat across from you in the hospice room – you could barely move and you could definitely not speak
I handed you a cup of water with a white bendy straw in it
You tried to get the water up, but it only went halfway in the straw and then kept falling back down into the cup
This happened two or three times and my guts were filled with terror
And then hopeless sadness
I realized this would be it
So I sat there and told you that it was okay, if you wanted to let go
I loved you and I understood that it was time for you to give up and just float away
The next time I saw you, the funeral home gave you to me in a black, rubber box
Too much t.v. had made me expect a decorative urn
I took your ashes to the grave sight of your parents, whom I’d never met
But I knew the place because your brother was buried there when I was fifteen and I remembered the way
I dug a small hole on top of your father and mother’s graves and I poured your ashes into the dirt
From the dirt, and back to it was the only way I guess to do something meaningful for you
I was surprised that the grey ashes seemed clumpy and thick at times
And it didn’t seem like it could be you there, when I felt like you were somewhere else entirely
You suck dad
Your grandson is a handsome, little boy and he makes fists all the time like I did when I was a baby
His name is Jaxson
And every day he makes me think of you
