September 5, 1954

Recently I made a list of some things I have done in the year since my dad died. The list was surprisingly long. A silly, serious, sad, joyful, loving list that points to evidence of a life, of living. A practice in recognizing and remembering, which feels important, as there are so many moments when life feels so far away. 

When someone dies, they will tell you all the things you should and shouldn’t do. -And let me be clear, by “they” I think what I’m actually referring to are the many voices that live internally- that thing you briefly read somewhere once, something you heard in passing, some line from a blog, a book, a sermon, a show that have become the words and thoughts and narratives that you now assign to everyone - friends strangers family - who hears or knows or is familiar with your story, your loss. But the they is usually just you. Because the truth is no one really says anything… no one tells you what you can and can’t do… how you should or shouldn’t be… you just imagine what they might say, what they could say…

That you’re doing it all wrong… that you should shut it out, sleep it away, stay put, medicate, move on, return to the regularly scheduled program, nothing permanent, no to big decisions, back turned to anything and everything new because how could you possibly let new life in when so much has been taken away. When the void is so great you feel like the embodiment of emptiness - so empty that you feel like you could be sick. Like the way you might throw up on an empty stomach. 

Grief is confusing in that way.. and in so many other ways. There’s so much whiplash. It opens you up so aggressively and everything simultaneously pours out and rushes in. Sometimes so quickly, you don’t even realize it’s happening. A watery, confusing mess of shedding and savoring; sweet and shocking and immensely sad. 

When I think about all the life I have let in over the last year, I truly cannot fucking believe that he doesn’t know/wasn't a part of every moment. The big the small the meaningful the meaningless that is meaningful in its own way the monumental and the mundane. Because I knew him so well, communicated with him so often, am so much of who he was, sometimes I forget that he wasn’t physically there - in my space and time - because I can so clearly and knowingly imagine every single scenario… what he would have said, how he would have reacted, the advice he would have given, the movie line he would have quoted, the moments he would have laughed, the song he would have referenced. He was so unbelievably predictable - but not in a way that was boring or obvious - he was predictable in his steadfastness- his unwavering commitment to decency and goodness and humor and truth. 

Shortly after he died, I decided to start writing to him. When he was alive, I would call him every day, multiple times a day. We would talk about everything but mostly we would talk about nothing - what I was making for dinner, the crazy shit I saw on the subway, a funny anecdote from school, what band he was rehearsing with that day, who Mavis (his dog) spent time with at the dog park, who he met for lunch. Sometimes the conversations were long, but usually they were short… 5 min here, a few minutes there. A month after he died, I was so intensely missing this connection that, without much thought, I opened a document on my iPad and typed what I wanted to tell him on that particular day. 

August 30, 2023

I built an Adirondack chair by myself. Ryan and I built the first one. But I built the second one by myself. Also, after removing our entire bedroom wall, the dry wall guy asked us if we wanted to get high and then immediately apologized for asking.

It felt like an exhale after days of holding my breath. I decided that, as long as I needed to, I would write down everything that I would have called to tell him. That was a little over a year ago. I have written to him (almost) every day. Like our phone calls, most of the writing is just silly little moments I want to share with him. Some of it I probably wouldn’t have shared with him… but I needed a place to place what I was feeling. And there are days where what I wrote wouldn’t have made sense in the context of him being alive- because they are about his death. I’m grateful, however empty it sometimes feels, that I have found this way to speak to him every day. Because sometimes it’s the only thing that pulls me out of the emptiness. The pouring out and the rushing in. 

Today would have been his 70th birthday and what I want more than anything is to be able to call him. To talk about everything and nothing and to tell him, like I did most years, that today is my favorite day because he is my favorite person. But I can’t call him, so I write it instead and I share it here so that my love for him is forever documented (in a place where nothing disappears.) A few weeks ago, I found a screenshot of a post I made for him on his birthday in 2017. I wept genuinely happy tears after I read it because I was so deeply grateful knowing that he had read what I wrote and that he knew just how much he meant to me. I miss my dad, I miss my closest friend.

Today is and will always be my favorite day because he is and will always be my favorite person.