He’s little more than a distant man named “Dad” now, so I’m not that upset about it. That’s a lie, obviously, but I have to laugh at the sheer perfection of it to keep from crying.

I saw him last week visiting his mother who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She is on drugs and is much better now, though still relapses to a set of memories from a different era, but with the names changed to include those immediately around her in the narrative. When it’s not terrifying and tragic it’s perhaps kind of cool, but it’s usually mostly terrifying and tragic and it’s my grandmother so I can’t be as usefully diagnostic about it the same way vet-techs assess an animal as a series of probable causes of death as opposed to a person; a machine rather than a dog. I lack that off switch for my empathy, but I view its omission as more of a feature than a bug.

I saw Dad (how strange to type/say/think “proper-noun-Dad-as-my-own-father”) last week. I opened my computer to retrieve the wifi password for The Grandparents’ router - I’d replaced my hard drive and started with a fresh install, so my keychain was wiped clean. “Lion?” he asked. Inside I was flabbergasted - he was a person! Who knew about modern operating systems. I wondered if he knew who Gruber was, but then realized he has some HP-ish clamshell of his own so perhaps not, but still, that little suggestion that his world overlapped with mine was akin to when then-1.5-year-old Neven was flabbergasted when a relative he just met also knew a song from Blue’s Clues. What is happening to my world.

Dad (nope, still weird) said, with seemingly genuine affection, that he’d be here until Tuesday, and he hoped I’d drop by again. Our small talk was small, but comfortable enough, I suppose. I was simply caught off guard. I’ve no ill will toward the man - he left my mom 20 years ago, we are both different people now. I’m who I am because of the hardships that resulted, who am I to say I’d be better or worse off otherwise.

I stopped by The Grandparents’ after work today. I sat outside in my car, having brought a change of clothes and a flattering hat to tame my curls - not wanting to be caught in my work uniform covered in dog and cleaning chemicals like when I was unexpectedly confronted with him last time - and thought how I’d broach the subject of dinner. I’d ask him if he would want to get something to eat, jutting my thumb casually over my shoulder. I rehearsed it. I was, sort of, after a weekend spent drinking and contemplating and pro-conning the whole ordeal, ready to maybe reconnect with him.

The lone rental car that was in the driveway when I was there last was gone. Perhaps Aunt Denise left, and Grandad was Dad’s ride to the airport.

I went inside, and it was just the two of them. Grandad and Grandma, watching MSNBC. A guy named Ed was talking about the election. Grandad is very political, and loves Rachel Maddow. He’s pretty cool.

They were it, though. Denise, Yvonne, Justin, Dad - no one else there. It was just a quiet Monday night for them.

I know it’s perhaps, maybe, a little unfair to think he lied to me. Maybe he got the date wrong, or maybe his flight got bumped, or maybe him and Denise shared a layover flight. I think he’s in Oregon, and she’s in California - perhaps the two of them snagged a deal together and left this morning instead. Or Sunday night. I know that he cooked chili and that there was some in the freezer that he’d left for The Grandparents. Vegetarian, of course. Maybe I should’ve bucked up and just went Saturday night instead of going to a goddamn fetish ball downtown, or went Sunday night instead of sitting alone and reading and doing the “recharge my introvert batteries with solitude and mental defragging” thing. But whatever the case, he wasn’t there tonight.

And so on my way home, I had to laugh. Loud, buffoon-like guffaws that were as unflattering as they were indicative of how I felt inside. I had to laugh to keep from crying. Just at the sheer, absolute perfection of my dad not. Being. There.

4 notes | | Nov 7, 2011
  1. winandtonic posted this