One thing I learned after my Dad died is that I strongly prefer to say that my Dad died. I don't object to euphemisms, in theory. If you'd asked me ahead of time, this isn't something I would've anticipated feeling one way or the other about. But in practice, I find myself recoiling, in the way one recoils from a clammy surface, to the notion that my Dad "departed" or "lost his battle with cancer" or even simply "passed."
Long before having my own kids, I remember being advised that young children respond best to a direct statement of fact when it comes to inducting them into the carnal knowledge of mortality. Children—literal-minded as Amelia Bedelia—are prone to misunderstanding the cutesy turns of phrase we use to obscure or soften death: when told that grandma or Rover are "no longer with us" or have "passed on," a preschooler may reason, duh, grandma lives in Huntsville, or ask, where exactly did he go?, setting yourself up for minutes or hours of tragicomic clarification.
I don't have a better way of explaining my preference for "my Dad died" except, I suppose, for the shrugging admission that I am, in some ways, still a child.
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Most mornings, AR and LT wake up at approximately the same time and immediately begin colluding. They scamper, giggling, into our bedroom, hoist themselves into the middle of our bed, and announce what animal they're each pretending to be that day. Today, AR is a turtle, so he repeatedly flops onto his back and flails his legs pitifully in the air until LT (a dog), comes to the rescue and flips him over.
After getting dressed, their favorite activity is standing side by side in the kitchen while they stare vacantly into the middle distance, chomping on bananas. They build elaborate magnatile castles in the family room -- homes for toy animals who promptly feud with each other over yard space and monster-truck parking. When it's time to leave for daycare, AR picks up two identical beanie-baby bears (both named BeeBoo, purchased multiple times in case the original BeeBoo was lost) to clutch in the car.
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Something I developed over the course of my Dad dying is a more complicated relationship to the concept of foresight.
My Dad didn't die in a freak accident, or at an objectionably early age, or unexpectedly, or unjustly (except to the extent that every death feels unjust). In almost every aspect, he (and we) were lucky: lucky that his cancer waited years to announce itself, lucky that my stepmom dragged him into the ER at the crucial moment, lucky that he had no significant comorbidities, lucky that the same chemo drug kept working far longer than expected, lucky that he didn't feel life-altering side effects, lucky that every CEA reading and CT scan showed improved numbers (until they didn't), lucky that he was around long enough to attend my wedding and dissertation defense, be present as I moved back home, settled down, introduced him to his grandkids.
It feels inappropriate to feel anything but grateful, or to say I wish we had more time. (I do wish we had more time. But also, we got more time.) Nothing significant was left unresolved, remarkably little left unsaid.
But still, there's no anticipating it. It's permanent. Abject. Present. Ambient. Unacceptable. Mundane.
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I do that thing everyone does, where I imaginatively call Dad into the present by speculating how I expect he'd respond to a piece of news, or prompt myself to remember what it sounded like when he answered the phone, or how he looked sitting in his recliner.
I also do that thing they recommend to help children preserve their memories of dead relatives and to disperse the risk of taboo: I don't hesitate to talk about Dad in relevant contexts or when he comes to mind. When LT asks how people learn how to drive cars, I mention that Grandpa Jeff helped teach me how to drive in his white Nissan. When he asks what golf is, I tell him that Grandpa Jeff used to love playing golf and watching professional golf players on TV.
Reliably, whenever I mention Grandpa Jeff, AR pipes up helpfully to add, "Gwanpa Jeff died!"
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Grief is private, and writing about it in a publicly available medium is an odd, voluntary puncturing of that privacy. Why do it?
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Dad was a moderator of a Facebook group for fellow veterans who served on the USS Dale. He dedicated himself to chronicling the Vietnam era of the ship, grumbled IRL about the group being dominated by younger vets, and wrote long, pedantic posts attempting to verify this or that fact about the ship's movements or armory during his tenure.
I asked him once why the memories of his six-year stint in the Navy occupied him so much -- as opposed to, say, his subsequent 30-year career as an electrical engineer for Bell Labs. He acknowledged it was an interesting question, and one that he hadn't given due consideration. He had some speculations but no sure answer.
Given enough time, what we choose to dwell on winds up defining us.
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