Sleep in anticlimatic

It’s been weeks since I’ve gotten a satisfying amount. Not sure if it’s the humidity, the midnight ice cream, or the absence of any degree of peace- mind, body, soul- meta and micro.

A month after my Dad died, just when I finally got to thinking about him for a healthy and productive portion of my day, in what I considered to be healthy and productive ways, I get a letter from the sonofabitch. It was discovered in the safe, stashed away with a handful of other letters- one for my ma, and one for each of my siblings. I was the last to know about it. I noticed everyone suddenly being particularly sad and quiet, but chalked it up to the cycle of things. Was chatting with my ma about motor homes (she’s selling the Florida house and traveling the country instead), when something was said that triggered a memory and suddenly she asked me if I got my letter yet. Not knowing what in the hell she was talking about, I asked “what letter?,” and her heart seemed to sink. She dug it out- all alone, last one to be distributed- making apologies for how it looked (“That’s how I found it, I didn’t read it, it was just open and hanging out of the envelope like that”), and I put it in the center console of my truck for the duration of the work day.

Once finished, I collected a tall boy and a pack of smokes from the gas station, parked by the old Hobbit Pond (this ancient stone fountain structure hidden in the woods- place I used to visit a lot when I was a kid- place that holds a lot of peace and a lot of meaning for me) and prepared to hear from my old man, one last time.

He spoke mostly about how much he loved my mother, and was counting on us to take care of her. What he wanted me to do with his old car. Who else he had written so far. He told me that I was a good son. That he’d love me forever. A page and half, with the last half of the second page filled mostly with three large cursive letters- “DAD.”

Pulled several muscles in my neck and jaw coming apart emotionally and found myself gripping the stone wall around the pond to keep from falling to the ground. Shit hurt, let me tell you.

I’m now the oldest male in my immediate family. I can make peace with that- with being next up on the docket, so to speak. But there’s something I just can’t seem to make peace with. Can’t put my finger on it. He had so much…meaning, in him. Or should I say, I had meaning in him.

What’s left to do when we can no longer impress our fathers? I suppose impressing our fathers is never the point of life, so how did I let it be such a large part of my own? Guess I just never saw it coming. Who does, in a practical sense? People that significant in our lives, however old they may be, are supposed to die in the future- forever in the future- never the present.

Now, I lay awake, wondering how I can recalibrate my entire bed of life motivation. At the moment I’d settle for thinking about anything else, but GOOD LUCK with that Sir.

Good luck, and goodnight.