August 20, 2024
Day 235 without you
Hey Dad,
My therapist told me I should try writing letters to you. She says it will help me to “process” (how do you even process your dad dying anyway?). So, here we are. Dad, I would give anything to be sitting across from you and just talking like how we used to, but instead I’m sitting behind my computer screen, trying to find the right words to express how I feel.
I’m going to be honest, Dad, and I don’t think you’re going to like it. I have been really struggling. I know you said things would be easier once we didn’t have to worry about tests and cancer spread and surgery and hospice. But I would take every one of those worries 1,000 times over if it meant you were still here. I would worry for the rest of my life because that would mean you’d still be here to worry about. Dad, you were the hardest to worry about because it was so painful to imagine you being gone, but you were also my favorite worry because you were you. You still are you, I guess, but you’re not here with me. It’s me who isn’t the same anymore.
I think about you all the time, Dad, but I think about you the most when I’m driving, when the music is turned up and one of your favorite songs comes on. It doesn’t even have to be one of your favorites, when any song comes on I think of you because you knew every song. It was your not-so-secret secret talent—you knew every word to every song, and then you could go on and on about the artist or band and how they thought to write that song. And you didn’t just know every song, Dad, I swear you never heard a song you didn’t like. From Van Halen and Def Leopard and Billy Joel to Rhianna and Maroon 5 and Green Day, you knew it all, and you loved it all. That’s why it’s so hard for me to listen to music now, because I can’t hear anything and not think of you.
Even if I had never heard you sing the song before, sometimes I swear I can hear you singing along. I can hear how you would pronounce the words and how you would make your voice go up and down. God, Dad, you were a beautiful singer. I don’t think I told you that enough. But you were, and you could sing to every song. I can see you now, driving with your left hand on the wheel, resting your right elbow on the middle console. I’m sitting in the passenger seat playing my “Oldies” playlist because I knew you would be proud of me for the songs on the list. I would get the biggest smile whenever you would hear a song you hadn’t heard me play and would say, “Ahh, good song.” It was like each song triggered some sort of memory for you, maybe a slow dance in the ’80s or playing baseball. But here I am now, in the driver’s seat, having wonderful, painful memories of you triggered in my head whenever I hear any song.
I listen to the playlist you made for me sometimes, but most times it’s too hard. Instead I try to listen to new music you had never heard because it’s easier that way, not having any memories tied to a song. On the other hand, there are still songs I can’t listen to, songs that have too much of you in them. I can’t listen to Journey because you once told me your favorite song was “Don’t Stop Believin,'” but I knew it wasn’t, you were just too sick to remember your actual favorite song. I can’t listen to Maverick City because once I walked outside to you sitting by the grill listening to “Jireh,” and I can’t listen to Billy Joel because you, Mom, and I used to sing “The Longest Time” together.
It’s so weird that music is affecting me so much in my grief, Dad. You were always the musical one, but when I think about it more, good music was something we always related on. I’ve learned that grief is sneaky like that, always creeping up in ways you never expected. I never thought a three minute song could affect me so much, but then I lost you. That seems to be the moral of everything recently, Dad—but then I lost you.
