Remembering My Dad…

It was 34 years ago today that my Dad passed way from a heart attack he suffered 3 days earlier.  I was 13.  As we get closer to Father’s Day I will post my favorite letter I wrote about him from a few years back.

You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone so important to you until it actually happens.  What I remember most about the hours and days after he died is how much I cried.  I know now from being a dad, just how quickly and how often kids cry.  At 6 and 10 Nathan and Kate probably find some reason to cry on a daily basis.  Surely I cried as much then at those ages as they do now, but I hardly remember any of  it.  Maybe that’s why my sobbing when Dad died seems so memorable.  At the funeral it was just endless, relentless wimpering and crying and hyperactive tear glands.  It just hurt so so much.  While we all shared the grief, only my sister Mary could match my outpouring of the sorrow inside.  Strangely, sadly, one of the everlasting images of my father, is of him crying as hard as I was that day, on they day we buried my brother Al, my oldest brother, his first born son.  I was 5 and I didn’t really know what it all meant, but seeing your Dad cry like a baby will brand a memory in your heart forever.

In the days and weeks that followed Dad’s passing I felt a prolonged numbness.  What now?  What do you do without a Dad?  School was on out of body experience.  As my 7th grade peers anxiously awaited the end of another school year and the start of week after week of summer fun, I just went through the motions and wallowed in sadness.

One of the last things we did together, was sign me up for my first ever try at midget football.  How I wished he could have been there at any time, that year or any year to see me play.  From that miserable beginning, a chubby lineman barely sucking the weight to not exceed the limit for the league, to becoming a co-captain of the Varsity as a senior, it would have been great to get an “attaboy” from my father. 

We played about a 999 rounds of mini-golf on my homemade golf course in the backyard.  Only a few weeks before 5/21/75, he took me into Zambito’s, a rundown sporting goods store somewhere off the beaten path in Rochester, so I could buy my first set of real golf clubs.  Not 30 days after May 21st of that year was my 1st attempt on a real golf course.  I’ve played a thousand times since.  You know, just once with the old man and his Two Guys putter with the light blue shaft woulda been real special.

At no age is it easy to lose your Dad.  My best friend lost his only a couple years ago.  He had 40+ years with his Pop.  They weren’t all great.  In fact, some were bad.  But chances are if you have your father that long, you have more memories together, and it may be even harder to lose them when they’re with you for  so long.  There’s no good time to say goodbye.

While I wish my Dad was here today, it’d be hard to trade the experiences I’ve had, and the things I’ve  learned, and the person I’ve become because I lost him 34 years ago.  I know in many ways it has made me stronger, more resilient, more patient, more positive and more appreciative of my blessings and the people around me. 

Thanks Dad.

I didn’t know where this would go, and I didn’t know where it would end, but it feels better in print, than in my head.