Father’s Day is this weekend and I need to buy a card for my husband, Nick. I love picking out cards. I love standing in the aisle and giggling until I find the perfect one. It brings me joy. This year though, things are different. This year, I’m dreading my usually enjoyable trip to the card aisle.
I lost my dad in April. I lost my dad 72 days ago and there are still some days when I have to convince myself he’s not here anymore. Like how is a person there and then just not? It’s a nice place to be, that little pocket of the world where my dad isn’t dead. I dreamed about him a few weeks ago. There he was in his Tevas and cargo shorts, his long white beard intact, (his beard before all the chemo robbed him of it), he was doing something ridiculous that I can’t remember, but it doesn’t matter. When I woke up, I laid there for a while thinking about all the things he’d be doing if he was still here: making wine, mowing the lawn, drinking beer and talking shit during croquet, making wooden swords for my boys, or walking around the yard showing me how well his fruit trees were doing. The list went on and on until I fell back asleep, quietly hoping I’d get to see him again.
Nothing reminds me more of his absence than the Father’s Day card displays. I tried to find one for Nick when they first popped up in the stores a couple weeks ago, but each card I touched was like a little shard of glass. Even the bad ones sliced right through me. I left with empty hands and tear-stained cheeks thinking I’d pick one out next time I was there. I’ve walked past that damn aisle for weeks now.
His birthday was at the end of March. He was in the hospital, and not doing well, so we never really got a chance to celebrate. I bought him 2 cards then. I told you I love cards, but I’ve never bought two for the same occasion. This time I had to. One was a silly one from all of us, his “favorite nuts” off the family tree, and the other was just from me. It said: “At what age does a daughter stop needing her dad?” and on the inside it read, “I’ll let you know when I get there.” We are a family that has a hard time talking about the serious stuff, so I wanted him to have it as a quiet acknowledgement of how much he meant to me and how much I still needed him. He was released from the hospital the afternoon of his birthday, and he was gone 7 days later. I never got the chance to give him the cards. It seemed so trivial then. They never even entered my mind as I watched him slipping away. But, god, I can’t tell you how much I wish I’d given him those cards. I have them tucked away now, wrapped in a plastic bag in a bin at the back of my closet.
When he first died and I was an absolute mess, I wailed to Nick about how I’d never get to buy my dad another Father’s Day card. His answer was simple, he said: “Buy him one if it makes you feel better. Buy him one every year for the rest of your life if you want to.” Does that make me crazy? Buying a card for someone who’ll never see it? They say grief is just love with no place to go, so what is a card with no one to send it to? And how many cards will it take to fill the hole he left?
I guess I’ll start with one and let you know how it goes.