As my father’s death crept closer, I often considered how I’d react when he was no longer around. I would be paralyzed by grief, I was fairly sure, unable to cope and perhaps unable to function. And then it came, my father’s death, and my life was less than shattered. I lost weight, regained my healthfulness, and found a degree of success selling homes. For nearly two years, when I acknowledged my father’s death at all, I felt hurt for Marisa, or Ethan, or my mom, while secretly feeling shame that my father’s death had not done more to cripple me. For my father, for the public, had I subjugated my feelings so long that now I could no longer find them?
Whatever the causes, this numbness lasted nearly five years. Then, although I recall no turning point, although I can’t even tell you what triggered it, I was able to properly mourn. I admitted my father was gone, and how much that hurt, really, really hurt, and that this emptiness inside me would never completely fill back up. It was during this time, about five years after his death, when I first returned to my father’s grave.
My mother had already been there several times, but I had refused all requests to join her. I did not really understand why I told my mother no, just as I didn’t comprehend the stirring I felt that cool April morning to speak with my father. Amidst no crisis, there was nothing profound I felt I must say. And yet the impulse felt strong.
What was it?
I didn’t know.
I let the feeling pull me where it wanted to go, to a corner store, where I purchased a bottle of liquor: Commemorativo tequila, his favorite. Arriving at the graveyard, I hurried past marble headstones, hunting for Chick Jr.’s grave, the signpost to my dad’s. I found it and knelt on the moist morning ground above where my father lay. Over the grass now carpeting his grave, I poured the first shot for him; he always enjoyed tequila far more than I. Still, whatever this was, we were in it together. I downed a small cup myself. The brown liquor jolted my brain and burned my stomach. How could my father drink this? He always said he was only half-Irish, but I think he was all Irish. Was I talking outloud now or thinking? What was I doing here anyway? It was unnatural, to be drinking this way first thing, drinking tequila no less, among the dead at that. Still, for close to an hour I knelt there, sipping but mostly pouring. Talking to my father. Crying and laughing. Remembering. Forgiving. And understanding. The spring sun was heating the air and felt good on my arms. I did not want to leave him. Not yet. But I was feeling tipsy, and I still had to get back home. I knew there was just one solution. I sprinkled the rest of the liquor above him. Pictured him healthy and whole in my mind. Pictured my father smiling.
“I have to leave you now, Dad. But I’ll come back soon. I love you. I know you love me. And wherever I go I’ll take your love with me.”
Then I stood up straight and started moving forward.