Father's Day: Both Grieving and Grateful

I love my father as the stars - 

he's a bright shining example 

and a happy twinkling in my heart.  

~Terri Guillemets

I’m going to try and keep this one short and sweet (you know how I have the talent of the “prattle”).  I know many of us are struggling this weekend.  Many of us are missing the father of our children, our own fathers, or are just trying to work through yet another “family” weekend. 

And when I say work, I mean work.

This week has been a tough one for me as well.  As I said in a Father’s Day blog on The Denver Post’s Mile High Mamas, Father’s Day begins my “cluster” of milestones.  Many of us have them and I’ve always thought how strange it is that it works out that way.  It always seems like our spouse died around a birthday or a holiday that makes one season unbearable for us.

For me...it’s now.

Tomorrow is Father’s Day and in a week it will be my birthday.  A couple of weeks after that is the anniversary of my husband’s death and then 2 days after that is our wedding anniversary.

As many of us know, the anticipation of these milestones is usually harder than the actual day.  My own grief and frustration about grieving finally built up this week until I had a blow up of epic proportions at about midnight on Wednesday.  If there was a hole in my face...I was leaking from it. For a couple of hours, I allowed myself to cry, vent, and generally not feel good about this whole widdahood thing.

I think I scared my dog, but I feel much better now.

This week has also been incredibly emotional for me because some good friends of ours called with some news about their newborn that sent me into a tailspin.  Now these are the friends who you know should be parents, but take their own sweet time going about it.  And just when you think it’s never going to happen...they announced over the winter that they were expecting. 

But earlier this week they called to tell me something that no parent ever wants to hear...whether it’s about your child or someone elses.

Their 3 week old baby’s heart had started failing (apparently due to a birth defect they didn’t catch) and had been taken in for emergency by-pass surgery.

My first thought when they told me this was, “Why wasn’t my husband here?”  He was part of the foursome.  Part of the team.  I mean...I could talk to the mother about the ins and outs of breastfeeding and all of the child birth stories that tend to make men leave for manlier pastures.  He should be here for the conversation about how hungover they both were for the birth of their children and how it might be possible to attach a remote control motor to a stroller so they won't have to leave their napping positions under the tree at the park.

For a moment...I felt like a very poor substitute.

It’s taken me a week to realize that...even though I may feel inadequate in picking up the slack for the both of us as a parenting couple...I must be coming across okay to the outside world.  This morning it dawned on me...they called.  They called me.  They knew he wasn’t home.  They knew he couldn’t come with me to fill in meaningless conversation during the endless hours that seem to happen at the hospital.  They knew I was flying solo.

And I was enough.

My friends will get to go home today with their beautiful month old daughter and this morning I woke up with a feeling that overpowered my dread of Father’s Day.  Even though there is still a sadness in my heart that I can’t explain that my husband will never meet this beautiful little girl, I remembered the look on his friend’s face last night at the hospital as he watched his baby sleep...the baby he could have so easily lost. 

And even though I will desperately miss my husband tomorrow, I will be grateful that there is a dad out there who will be spending the day with his daughter...when there was a chance that things could have turned out so differently.

The Impossibility of Father's Day

I can’t let this week pass without acknowledging the dreaded day that’s before us. For those men who take the time to read this, please replace “Father’s” with “Mother’s” and pretend I posted it a month ago. I know you know what I’m talking about.

No one likes this time of year. If you have kids, it’s just an impossible day. If you don’t have kids…it’s still an impossible day. This is the epitome of “family bonding” and whether you’re with family or without…it really sucks. It’s just another reminder of what might have been…for everyone.

It starts early, doesn’t it? Those advertisements to not forget your loved one on this special day. The friendly announcers trying to convince us that our spouses would be completely happy on Father’s Day if we just got them a brand new grill and a riding lawnmower. The hot dog commercial showing the perfect family scene with the kids running around the yard and Dad at the grill (I guess that would be the new grill he’s about to get). The tearful dad opening the perfect Hallmark card from his loving wife (hopefully it’s not one that plays music…what’s that all about?).

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound so bitter. Oh wait. Yes I do!

I feel bad now, that my own dad’s Father’s Day seems to be overshadowed by our need to go visit my husband. He never complains about it, but who wants to spend their “special day” in a cemetery? You can bet your ashes I wouldn’t if I could get out of it. But he’s always a good sport and comes along even though I spend about a week providing him with excuses just in case he would rather do something normal. Like nap.

Random fathers I don’t know very well are the lucky recipients of Father’s Day cards from me now because I can’t seem to stop buying them. I am a HUGE fan of humorous cards and Father’s Day is just full of them. My husband was all about the sweet, caring, mushy Mother’s Day cards and I could never seem to step away from the cards that somehow tied Father’s Day in with beer and potty jokes.

I guess, in my mind, it seemed more appropriate on Father’s Day rather than Christmas, so I better just take advantage of it.

Anyway, as we creep closer and closer to Father’s Day (insert theme from “Jaws” here), I can’t help but think about the first one I spent without my husband.

My husband’s remains are buried in a beautiful spot in the Colorado Rockies. It’s not easy to get to, but it’s a destination and I am constantly thankful that my children look forward to going there. They can explore in the woods, throw rocks in a stream, and wreak a little havoc in this nice, quiet cemetery in the mountains.

Our first Father’s Day without my husband was nearly a year after he had passed. We packed up the “family truckster” and headed west to partake in a little bonding while we paid tribute a great dad. The kids cheerfully talked and giggled in the backseat while I kept my sunglasses on, swallowed about 20 times per second, and watched the road with the intensity of a brain surgeon.

When we’d finally parked and started down the mountain towards my husband’s final resting place, it really hit me.

I’m not supposed to be here.

I mean, this is a joke, right? I thought, “I’m 32. He’s only 35. We should be at home watching him laze around in a recliner until we’re due at some family function we don’t want to go to. He should be realizing we don’t have enough propane to properly burn the burgers, just like he likes them. He should be trying to balance the soggy cereal the kids have given him in bed while they use him as a human jungle-gym. I’m not supposed to be sitting next to some tombstone with my kids. This is ridiculous.”

I still remember to this day…it felt like a complete out-of-body experience.

Father’s Day without a father and Mother’s Day without a mother are just…cruel. People who have not been through this kind of loss automatically assume it’s Christmas or Thanksgiving that are impossible to get through, but I think they’re underestimating the power of the Parental Days. Because nothing says “SOMETHING IS WRONG” like a day that is specifically designed to celebrate a parent…and not have the parent be there.

The day drowns us a little, doesn’t it? If I hadn’t been through this, I wouldn’t think twice about how hard teachers work to make sure the kids have some craft to give to mothers and fathers. I loved that stuff when he was around and now it almost feels like an unintentional right hook to the jaw. These days are the main reasons why I still (3 years later) tell every new teacher my kids have that their dad has passed. I don’t want them to get blindsided making some pinch-pot when one of my kids says, “Who the hell is this for? I don’t got one of those.”

(My kids don’t actually talk like that.)

I will say that, over the years, the shock of not having him here on Father’s Day has lessened a little. It still hurts, but it’s not that sucker punch to the stomach that it used to be. That has been replaced by an anger that I can’t explain and that I take out on innocent bystanders. We still go to the mountains and I hope it’s a long time before my kids really realize that this is an odd thing to be doing and that not all families celebrate the day by going to a cemetery. Because right now they love it and they look forward to going as a part of a series of “Daddy Days” we have every year.

So to the fathers who once were, the fathers who should have been, the dads who are still here to help us pick up the pieces, and the mothers who now find themselves as fathers too….

Happy Father’s Day. I’ll see you on the flip side.

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© Catherine Tidd 2010