Nine years

When I think about the fact that my father died nearly nine years ago, my mind sort of can't process the information. It's strange because it seems almost like it just happened, yet also so far away. When I think about his face sometimes, the way he sounded like when he spoke, sometimes it feels so tenuous. The suddenness of his passing compounds this threat; there was no closure, it was almost like he just disappeared. Of course, photographs remind me of what was real, but even photographs can't capture his presence, the way the felt when he made me laugh, or mad, or sad. It's like I can remember so much, but the details start getting fuzzier, no matter how much I try to hold on to them.

What's even more painful sometimes is knowing I will never get to know him as a fully-formed adult. I was 24 when he died. I was still learning about myself, and of course I still am, but ten years later I have so much more self awareness. At the time, I was still very much stuck in the teenage mindset of being annoyed by ones parents' particular idiosyncrasies, while simultaneously wanting or needing their approval for every life decision. Now all those annoyances seem so small. I never truly got to get to know him as a person, separate from being his daughter. He may have even understood my impatience with him, accepted that it was a phase I was going through. Still, I wish more than anything I could have told I'm sorry. That I was too hard on him. If love is all that really matters in life, and I believe this, why couldn't I live by this truth?

We tend to forget sometimes our parents had lives before we were born -- quite often, rich and interesting lives. My dad had a difficult childhood, orphaned at 13 and not ever knowing his father. Then, barely an adult himself, he was sent to war. It scared me a bit, the amount of loss he had endured, all that he had suppress just to get through the day. I understood, I think, that his life with us, his family, was a incredible gift and one he didn't feel he quite deserved. He was grateful, but also fearful of it all slipping way. I think I knew he felt that way, but it also made me sad. I wanted to know more about his life, yet I was afraid of bringing up an uncomfortable subject.  

Regret about time wasted is a hard thing to shake. Those last couple years with him, I was just getting my bearings, learning how to be brave, how to put myself in someone else's shoes. Time doesn't heal this wound, it only lingers. I'll never get the chance to be better with him, to try harder. 

Perhaps, had he lived, I would have asked for advice more often. We would talk about books, and movies, and TV, fantasy worlds neither of us inhabited. But what of his life? What had he learned? How had he changed?