My Dad's Birthday
This past Saturday (March 12th) would have been my dad's 69th birthday. I've been thinking about my dad more often lately, mostly because of the pregnancy. He was also on my mind when I got married in 2018 and, of course, when I graduated from college in 2012, less than a year after he passed away. Big life events tend to bring up thoughts of the people who aren't here to share them with us. And having a baby is a pretty big life event!
I think my dad would have been excited to be a grandfather. If he were still alive, I'm sure he'd be making plans to come visit and meet the kid this summer. But I can't really imagine what that visit would look like. This hypothetical gets muddled quickly.
First of all, my mom is coming for a couple of months this summer to help us with the new baby and I can't imagine both of my parents here at the same time. They got divorced when I was 13 and didn't really talk or spend any time together for the next 7 years - when I did theater in high school, they would intentionally attend performances on different nights so that they didn't have to run into each other. They only started rekindling their friendship when my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and so it's hard for me to envision what their relationship would look like if he hadn't gotten sick.
Second of all, my entire adult life has been shaped by my dad dying when he did. My brother and I inherited his retirement fund and that money paid for all of my travels in my twenties. Without my inheritance, E and I probably could have still moved to Germany, but money would have been a lot tighter. It's hard to imagine my dad visiting us here to meet our baby because, in the timeline where he's still alive, I'm not sure if we still live in Berlin.
My dad died a couple of months after his 58th birthday. He had planned to take an early retirement that year because he didn't expect to live a very long life. His own father had died at 62, but, more importantly, my dad drank heavily and smoked for much of his life and his doctors predicted he wouldn't live long if he kept it up. He quit both habits - smoking when I was quite young and drinking around the same time as the divorce - but the damage was done. I know some of it was just bad luck. Lots of people smoke and drink and still live long lives.
But this was part of the story my father told about himself and passed on to me and my brother - our dad planned to take an early retirement because he didn't expect to live past 65.
And this leads me to the third reason why it's hard for me to imagine my father coming to visit and meeting his grandchild. When I was thinking about my dad's birthday last week and realized he would have been turning 69, I couldn't envision him reaching that age. Absolutely he should have made it past 58 and been there when I graduated from college. He should have retired and moved to Carrabassett Valley in Maine and enjoyed a few years of skiing at Sugarloaf, like he'd planned.
But I struggle to picture beyond that. I had the bizarre realization last week that, even if cancer hadn't gotten him at 58, I guess I still believe he would be dead by now? It is easier for me to imagine that he got a few more years and we went through the process of him getting sick and dying when I was in my mid- or late-twenties than it is for me to imagine him alive and well and becoming a grandfather this year.
Now that I've typed all of that out, it seems quite sad, but I don't feel especially sad about it. I mostly wanted to share it for its strangeness. How strange to still believe the story my father told, where he wouldn't live past 65. Until his birthday rolled around, I didn't realize I was carrying this assumption of his death. How strange to uncover my own lack of imagination in this way.
Then again, of course it gets harder to imagine a person in your life, the longer they spend out of it. Maybe it isn't strange at all to have a vague notion of missing someone and to wish they were around for a big life event, but not have a detailed vision of what their presence would look like. Just fuzzy imaginings, hazy alternate histories.
Thanks for reading On / Off's mildly morbid return. I'll be sending out new issues Monday-Thursday for the next two weeks.