death day
somehow, here again
Eight years ago today was the worst day of my life. Today it’s a good day. It’s a good day to remember you.
I’m tired of writing to remember. I want to write to relive. I want to write to feel your warmth, to hug your protruding belly, to lay on your chest and tap rhythms on it with my fingers. I don’t want to tell them about your laugh, about your giant feet, about the pace of your typing on the desktop, about the chemistry experiments you’d show me for fun, about the crooked haircut you gave yourself, about the 13 Bridgstones stacked against each other in the entryway because you would compulsively buy them off Craigslist, about the makeshift putting green we made in the living room with a carpet runner and a tea candle. I don’t want to tell them about your eyes. I DON’T WANT TO TELL THEM.
My grief is changing. Its heaviness weighs with different matter. I’m graduating college this May. And you won’t be here. And that’s unacceptable. But there are many unacceptable things I must continue to live with every day. That doesn’t mean I’m accepting them; I’m living with the contradiction of these intolerable facts.
Your eyes. When you died, they gave them to someone else. They gave someone your eyes. You gave someone your eyes. You gave them sight. What a beautiful gift to leave.
I love you, dad. Happy death day. I’m celebrating you today, and every day.
-Kiddo