You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch

Today has been a week since we buried my father. Well we didn’t bury him. We burned him alive. Well, not alive. You know what I mean, right? If not? You’re in the wrong spot, my friend.

I am not a casual hugger. I’m not much for having my personal space or personal life invaded. Couple this with the fact that my father, who was my first best friend ever, no longer being with us and it is a recipe for disaster.

I am sarcastic. I am (what I like to call) witty. I’m not one for sugar-coating. And I don’t have much of a filter. This means that on more than one occasion in the last week or two, I believe I may have uttered things that humans aren’t supposed to say at funerals or even in public.

Let’s start a list, shall we.

• “Well, it’s official. He’s the Grinch that stole Christmas.”
• Them: I’m so sorry. Me: Me too
• "We lost my Dad. Well, we didn’t lose him, I know where he is. Well I hope he’s there. That would be really creepy if he was not at the funeral home.”

My family and my closest friends “get” me. They know that it’s just how I am. They also know it isn’t some weird therapy required coping mechanism.  I, and my tongue, are quick and sharp. And I don’t know if I cared at all, in the last two weeks, about offending others. So they take it with a grain of salt. Or they laugh their asses off. 

As my mother, sister, and I drove home from the hospital, having just said our goodbyes to Dad, the car was blanketed by silence - one filled every so often with an "Oh my God."  I turned the car onto our street and chuckled, muttering about how Dad was the officially the Grinch that stole Christmas, being that he passed away just a few days before the holiday. We all laughed a bit - my mother included. I have always been a Dr. Seuss fan. Dad would have loved the joke. There was no harm nor foul. But when I repeated it in the company of others a few days later? They were so uncomfortable it almost hurt to be around them.

When co-worker one said “I’m sorry” and I said, without missing a beat, “me too,” he looked at me and co-worker two stunned for a moment. Co-worker two, jumping to my defense, said “It’s a coping mechanism.” ….I don’t know if I agree with that. I don’t think it’s to cope. I just think it’s who I am. And who I am is what will get me through most anything. Crap, does that mean it’s a coping mechanism? Dangit. And it's true. For the last few weeks people have been saying "I'm so sorry." And I just think: Yeah, me too. Because: I am.

I stopped by the gas station the Monday after my father died, looking for what newspaper my dad’s obituary would be in that day (we ran it in one paper one day and the other the next) and the guy behind the counter eyeballed me as I shuffled through his paper. I was like “Uh, I’m just looking for the obituaries, sorry.” He went to say something so I quickly spit out “We lost my Dad.” And then I laughed. Because we didn’t LOSE him. I knew where he was. He was pained as he rang up the remaining 8 newspapers they had, for me. “Sorry for your loss.” You’ll be happy to know that I remained human and did not say “I just said we didn’t lose him, I know where he is.” I already felt sorry enough for him that I had said it the first time.

I had a lot of time with Dad before he passed. For two and a half years I spent every extra moment with him. We had slumber parties in the living room, he in his hospital bed and I on the couch or the very comfortable day bed my mom bought and put in the corner of their family room. There were days that my mom and sister both worked and it was just Dad and I at home. So we had time to talk. Dad wasn’t afraid to die. He wasn’t scared of what would come after he passed for him. He worried about us. He wanted to make sure we were okay. And he wanted to ensure that we weren’t going to sink into a big depression. So we talked about death sometimes. We laughed about how many times he cheated it. We giggled about how when Death got his assignment for the day and saw “Jim Carpenter” listed on his “To Do” list he would groan and plod off like a child about to be scolded, knowing that he would not be able to complete the task at hand, yet again. So when Dad passed away? I didn’t see a reason to be sad for Dad. I felt terrible for myself. I felt cheated to not be able to ask him about his day when I got home from work, I mourned the loss of having someone to help me build bookshelves when I bought my first house, I wondered if I ever married what it would feel like to not have a father to walk me down the aisle, I shed some tears knowing he was never going to be a grandfather and how sad it was that a child would be cheated having such a wonderful one. Mainly though, I was suddenly left with a silence that was palpable.

Near the end of Dad’s journey, he had a trach installed when he wasn’t clearing his airway well enough one time while intubated. And while he didn’t have to have oxygen, there was a humidity machine that ran and crikey was it loud. Returning home from the hospital without him that night, the silence was tangible and painful. You could hear everything. I hated that machine, I cursed the noises it made. I complained how loud it was while it ran as we slept. We moved it around the room, we padded under it, we wrapped towels around the sides – anything we could do to muffle it. And that was the thing I felt like I missed most that night we left him in the emergency room’s cold and quiet room. There was no noise. Just our own breathing, our sniffles, our sighs, our “what the hell just happened?” questions we were saying out loud to anyone or anything that was listening.

And then we made jokes. About how many times Dad had been in an intensive care, barely hanging on. The doctors would be baffled, unsure how to treat him next, uncertain what to tell us. But it usually involved calling the pastor and getting what family you could up there. We did this so many times I can’t even count on two hands. So having him come home, better, and ready to tackle the next part of his journey, we did normal things: my mom took a shower, I made a sandwich, my sister was buried in her phone. Death and tragedy – they weren’t even a thought in our head. It wasn’t something we were concerned about. While my mom was in the shower, Dad asleep peacefully in the bed next to mine, my sister and I discussed making a really great present for him and my mother for Christmas the following week. We were looking towards the future, without any hesitation. This means we still think it’s a bit "funny" that in that span of 10 minutes of my mom showering and me eating a bologna sandwich, and my sister cruising through Pinterest at warp speed – our entire world changed.

There were no doctors, there wasn’t a quick call to the pastor, there wasn’t even time for someone to make you fearful that this was the end of a chapter in the book of life. It just happened. He was there, and then he wasn’t. We called 911, we did CPR, we said his name over and over again. And then within an hour’s time? We had watched paramedics work on him in our family room, we had raced an ambulance to the hospital, we waited on pins and needles for a doctor, we received the news that there had been nothing they could do to restart his heart, and we sat in a cold and oddly lit emergency room and said our goodbyes. No fanfare. No fear. No big decisions to be made. I would imagine that’s exactly Dad’s doing. He had just watched his youngest child graduate from college less than a week earlier. He had made his peace years ago. He knew he was home and with the ones he loved. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my brain I know that it’s the best way to go. But it doesn’t mean my heart doesn’t ache. That I don’t relive the moments I made a bologna sandwich and sat there, next to him, eating it – completely unaware that my entire life would change in a matter of moments.

So, now we pick ourselves up, we brush ourselves off. And we probably never eat a bologna sandwich again. Sell your shares of Oscar Meyer now, people. I’m taking them down.