Summer of Shiva

good mourning to you

I blinked and a month went by without being able to talk to my dad. His face is still pinned to my messages and I reflexively try to call him when I go out for runs or walk to the grocery store and share the boring updates about my life that he was deeply interested in. It’s been a month since anyone on the planet called me “Jess”, and then my brother called me Jess out of the blue and I cried. 

I tried writing an obituary that sounded so stupid I gave up writing as a craft altogether. And I have no idea where it would go. I connected with his ex wife that I found out about in 2010 and she sent me photos of him with a perm in the late 70s. “I permed his hair and I married him,” she said. I messaged every single person who tagged him in Facebook pictures to ask them if they had any more. They told me about house parties they went to in Nowhere, Ontario and Michigan. My aunt asked me when I was planning on selling his motorcycle and for how much. I want to toss everything in the house but my brother says he wants to keep all of his furniture, all his stuff, even though he lives in a different province. Dad never threw anything away. He kept a sofa that belonged to his mother and an armchair that his dad used to sit in before he died a surprising, early death. And and probably a hundred framed photos. Many of the faces in the framed photos are now anonymous. Cousins I’ve never met, great uncles and great great aunts. Stern looking women with blanched faces in front of log cabins. Men with snowshoes and dog sleds. 

Back then, out east, the only way into town was by plane because the one road in was covered in snow half the year. The snow was deep. “Like this,” my dad would say with his hand at his chest. They built tunnels and real igloos. His mother was from a generation where everyone in town, young and old, wore dentures. A dentist flew in to pull everyone’s teeth and that was that. My dad had normal teeth. Maybe a bit yellow from smoking. He was in the middle of quitting when all of this happened. It’s one of the last texts I have. There were plans: He needed a tux for my wedding. Would he take my old one or get his own? Which hotel was he going to stay in? Did he book flights yet? Would he consider a move somewhere closer to family in order to see potential grandchildren? We said he should live in a building with an elevator and walking distance to a Tim Hortons, be closer to friends he could play Flight Simulator with or go golfing. He was confident about his ability to land a plane in an emergency. He logged the hours to prove it. 

If he knew how this would all play out he probably would have gotten in his truck and driven himself down to the funeral home just to spare us the trouble. 

If he is out there, if souls are real, and his is expanding into the universe with infinite knowledge and wisdom, then I guess he’s read this and everything I’ve ever written and knows all the things I didn’t get around to sharing yet, has seen the entire past, present and future, existing everywhere and nowhere at all. 

He loved birds, so sometimes I see a bird and think “maybe this is a sign.” His house was full of spiders, so when my brother was bit by a spider and had to go to the hospital I thought, “maybe this is also a sign.” When my fire alarm went off for no reason the night after he died, I thought, “maybe he has a sense of humour.” 

There are moments of clarity, moments of action, and long periods of stillness. I make lists and take notes during phone calls with lawyers and email them to myself and when I read them back all of the information is like a surprise. The funeral home sent me a customer satisfaction survey. My coworker sent me a traditional $36 condolences gift card to Sephora.

Ideas surface for a moment and then disappear. I seek out distractions to go as long as possible to not be alone with my thoughts. The podcasts that help me fall asleep now keep my mind alert and focussed on something. I’m closing my eyes to avoid looking at the carnage in front of me. I catch myself again and again: Dad would know how to handle this, you haven’t heard from him in a while, give him a call. 

Ignore the beautiful sunset. Ignore the smell of the ocean in the air. Go on a long run and cry in the public cactus garden because the last time you were there you were on the phone with your dad. Go to Zara and try on the ugliest clothes you can find, look in the mirror and freak yourself out. Reconnect with old relatives you avoided your entire life because they sketched you out. Drink too much at Shabbat lunch and cry in front of the host – you can’t help it. Get a spray tan and take a thousand naked selfies before watching it peel off over the week. You feel like you’re sitting in a tank of murky water and feeling around with your hands. The recent past isn’t any more real than whatever was happening in your life a decade ago. Anything not directly in front of your eyes vanishes back like a dream upon waking. Wrap your head around the idea that somebody can just be nowhere. Or everywhere. Whatever makes you feel better. 

Life is short and full of surprises. I hoped we would have a little more time. There was so much more to do.