Ah – family. I’m trying to be better about being connected to my immediate family. It’s tricky. My brother is all… sporty. And he and his wife both have doctorates in their chosen scientific fields. And I’m no slouch at Scrabble, but they know all these SPECIALIST words that are apparently entirely made out of Zs, Xs and Ks. Oh. And Cs. An underappreciated 3 point letter that can add up swiftly.
Now that George and Del have moved to the DC area, we’ve been making an effort to see one another more frequently and you’d THINK that my work-all-day gig-all-night schedule and their European-public-transportation-I-don’t-need-a-car Lifestyle would STILL present less of an obstacle than physically Living on opposite sides of the Atlantic Ocean, but it still seems a near thing.
This week is the anniversary of my father’s death. It’s unfortunate that my mother’s birthday and the day he died are only separated by about 48 hours. I guess that over the years one’s birthday means less and less and less – more a flag of “surviving another one” than a celebration of your birth. But the addition of the association of the death of your husband has got to completely undermine anything joyful about it.
We try to celebrate Life. I think I’ve gotten pretty good about it. It’s useless to wallow. Remembering the positive things and not the last couple of months of his Life which were so brutally painful becomes a little trickier when April 20th shows up on the calendar. As the rest of the world thinks about pot and Earth Day – oh so inextricably melded with one another – I think about cancer and “feeding” my father with a sponge.
Last night in West Virginia a man popped into the show who, without my glasses, at a glance – was a similar height and a similar age and had a similar hat to my Dad. It startled me, distracted me… and within moments the height wasn’t REALLY that similar, and the age was probably pretty off – and it wasn’t anything LIKE my Father’s Tilly hat – but my brain started churning nonetheless.
Today is beautiful. Not a cloud in the sky, flowers are blooming. Despite my preference for cold weather, my Love of snow, and my fierce allergic-to-anything not brown and dead nature – despite, in short, my usual hatred of the months betwixt March and November – I can appreciate that it’s a beautiful day. I remember the days around my father’s death being similar and thinking he would’ve appreciated them.
He also probably would’ve scolded me for driving through the high water last night. But he would’ve thought the GPS that was TELLING us to drive through the high water last night was pretty cool.
(thoughts – Dad thought his hand-held walking GPS was awesome. He would’ve thought the Tom Tom we use was awesomer – he’d have thought Kristen’s iPhone was about the coolest thing ever – he’d have thought that the re-issued Commodore 64 was silly, but he probably would’ve bought one)
1 thought on “April 17th, 2011.”
My father in laws birthday is also the anniversary of my mother in laws passing so I’m familiar with the situation. My wife mentions it every year. I can’t imagine what it must be like but because of your writing I don’t have to. I remember you mentioning it last year. I feel you brother.
I have been using TomTom for about 15 years. I have watched it evolve. I started using dedicated units professionally and switched to the phone app about 10 years ago. It got me 2k miles on a road trip to Phoenix AZ, using the iPhone XR last year flawlessly and today I have it on the iPhone 12. Feeling and relating quite a bit on this one. Your probably thinking, what’s he on about? I was born 30 years before computers and started late.