We visited my sister in Kentucky this weekend. I had been looking forward to this trip for a few weeks. In addition to having dinner Saturday night for her birthday, we were also having dinner to celebrate our father. Saturday would have been his sixty-seventh birthday. Unfortunately, he was only there in spirit. After a relatively short illness and bout with pulmonary fibrosis, our father passed away in August.
His death caught me off guard. I knew he was in the hospital and I knew the prognosis wasn’t clear, but I genuinely believed he would come home after a few weeks. The seriousness of the situation didn’t hit me until the day he would eventually die. In a tearful conversation, my sister let me know that there was a good chance he would die that day. After a bit of time, I tried to drive to the hospital, which was two hours away, to see him one last time. I received word that he died before I could get out of Nashville.
Grief comes in waves. Sometimes it’s calm and you feel okay. Then you feel the water move up and down a bit. Before you realize it, the water comes over your head and you’re temporarily under. You didn’t get a good inhale of air in before the wave caught you off guard and now you’re choking on water. It feels turbulent and it feels as though it will never stop. Suddenly, the water is calm again and you feel as though you can relax a bit, but now you’re a little more cautious.
Saturday was my father’s birthday. I knew the waves would be active. I also fully expected a memory from Photos and a reminder to call him. I received both of those. As much as I liked seeing his face in the first photograph, it was bitter sweet. A photo of me holding my son, with my sister on one side, my father on the other. The photograph was likely taken eight years ago. He always looked old to me. His hair had turned white when he was a young adult. From stories I’ve heard, his hair turned solid white shortly after high school graduation. I always think of him with a Steve Martin look. The memory hurt and I decided not to watch it.
I wanted to spend time with my sister. I knew it would be a tough weekend for her, with his birthday on Saturday and her birthday on Sunday. She will forever be reminded of him as her birthday approaches, which seems cruel. I am so grateful that I was able to spend time with my sister this weekend and that we were able to go out for dinner. She wanted to eat at Jasmine’s, which is a Thai restaurant in Murray, KY. A restaurant that our father would have struggled to choose a meal. His food choices were always very safe, which is another polite way of saying bland. My sister and I joked, wondering what he would have chosen. My money was on ham fried rice.