Life Will Be the Death of Me: . . . and You Too!(60)

Feeling spoiled was a good head space for me to live in for a while. But it was also time to turn that feeling into something else.

“My question, though, is: Am I really interested in helping fight the good fight for the right reasons, or is it because misogyny and racism represent boundaries, and I resent boundaries? What are my motives? Am I really fighting for others, or am I fighting for myself?”

“Did you apologize to the girl whose ass you grabbed?”

“Yes!” I exclaimed.

“How did that feel?” he asked.

“Awesome,” I told him. “I felt defensive at first, like I hadn’t done anything worth apologizing for, but I recognized that it wasn’t about my intention; it was about how my action was received. That my action was unwelcome. I get that now, and it didn’t take long for it to click this time.”

“That’s empathy—”

“Oh!” I blurted out, interrupting Dan.

“What?”

“My dad died.” I put down my iced tea and threw up my hands. “I’m sorry. I totally forgot to tell you.”

Dan very uncharacteristically jolted forward in his chair, with his hands folded, nonplussed. I use the word “nonplussed” because it means two things: very surprised or not surprised at all—almost as if a vet came up with its two definitions. Dan was surprised.

    To be fair, it was quite a predictable reaction for anyone to have, which is probably the reason I forgot to tell him. My plan was to tell no one about my dad dying—except maybe Mary.

“When did this happen?” he asked, alarmed.

“Sunday. I was on my way back from canvassing in Orange County.”

“I’m so sorry.” Dan’s face was filled with so much sympathy, I felt as if I would end up comforting him.

“It’s okay. I’m okay.” I stared at him. Nothing was going to come out in the way of tears. I felt devoid of feelings, nothing even closely related to grief.

“I don’t really feel anything,” I told Dan. “I mean, we’re halfway through our session and I just remembered, so…” I looked at him, searching for an answer—preferably from him. He was still leaning forward in his chair, but had relaxed a little.

“Well, your brain is used to wrapping up death and putting it away.”

“But after all this work we’ve done, am I just repeating the only way I know? What if I’m not growing at all?” I sat in my chair across from Dan, wondering what to say next.

“Honestly, I was more upset when Chunk died. That seems fucked-up.”

“Well, dogs are pretty good at not disappointing you, and loving you unconditionally.”

“Not Bert.”

“Who is this Bert?” he asked for the second time, slightly irritated.

    “He’s a stuffed animal I have at home,” I told him, dismissively, and got back to business. “Do you think I’m in denial, because it doesn’t feel that way, but I want to know if this is going to be another case of delayed grief. It feels like I’ve already mourned my father while he was alive. I haven’t told anyone yet. I mean, Molly, Karen, and Brandon know because they know all things, but I haven’t even told Mary.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t want that kind of attention.”

“You may not want it, but what if you are ready to receive it?”

“I’m not going to use my father’s death to mourn my brother, if that’s what you’re asking.” I felt like I had finally grieved my brother too, and although I felt sad at the finality of my father’s death, I wasn’t sad he was gone. I was relieved.



* * *



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Glen and I had driven to see my dad in Pennsylvania a month before he died, and my dad was a shell of himself—it was no way for anyone to live. He had shrunk from his king-size, larger-than-life self into a little old man in a wheelchair—white as a ghost, his once gargantuan hands now frail, reduced to half their size, with the veins on his hands so prominent that they looked like the hands of an old lady. We brought him some pizza, which we fed to him slowly in order to prevent him from swallowing it whole, and before we left, I rubbed lotion on his head, something my dad has loved for years—head jobs. My dad was weak and slow to speak, telling us the same thing he had been saying for years—that he was working on a book about my mother. He may have been working on a book about my mother, but it would have been only in his head. He hadn’t picked up a pen in years, and in my father’s mind, typing was for girls.

    “You know,” Glen said, when we were pulling away from my dad’s nursing home, “you only have yourself to thank for forcing him to get that quintuple-bypass surgery years ago.”

“That’s nice, thank you. I was young and stupid back then. I thought I was saving our family.”

“At least then he could have gone out on a high note,” Glen added.

“Yeah, I got it, Glen. Wouldn’t it be so much more humane if we could just put him down?” I said. “You need to put me down when things go south. I don’t want to fight cancer or anything like that. I’m wiped out. I’m fine to leave this life early.”

Glen’s youngest son was in the backseat and said, “I’ll put you down,” and then asked if we could stop for candy.