This is my first father’s day without my father, and it has been harder than I expected, (even though I was warned by friend).
I was listening to the radio this morning while Michael and I were doing the paper route, and I heard “Sometimes I forget” by Louden Wainwright III from his album History. It was on Sound and Spirit, a whole program on the theme of fatherhood. I’ve got to quit listening to that show.
Wainwright’s lyrics are simple enough. His dad is dead, and yet it feels like he has just gone on a trip. His wallet is still there, and his watch, and he wonders why his dad would leave without them.
Grief washed over me and I started crying, and I’ve been crying all day. I called my sister Toy, and she had been crying too. And I imagine my sister Joy is too, although she isn’t talking to us and that another whole reason to cry.
But today I miss him. There is no one to call. And I want very much to pick up the phone and tell him how we cleaned out the barn yesterday. And to tell him that Katie and the kids got me a new bike. And to say happy Father’s Day.
Why doesn’t he answer the phone?
There are five stages to grief, and I haven’t even been angry yet.
This is going to take a long time.
the daysman 