Category Archives: Memories

Laugh Until I Cry

Posted on April 17, 2012 | 14 Comments

Since my Dad died, there has not been a day that has gone by when his memory hasn’t entered into my mind.  The daily memories vary.  At times it is just his face, every now and then I am fortunate to hear his voice saying my name, and sometimes I hear him laughing.

What triggers these memories is just as varied as what I remember.  They can be overt, like looking at the picture I keep of him in the sun visor in my car or fielding questions about him from my kids.  Other times, the triggers are subtle, like a simple bump in the road or watching a movie.

The other night I was watching Mel Brooks’ ‘History of the World Part 1’.  I had DVR’d it some time ago but had been unable to watch it until the other night (iCarly and TVLand had taken precedent as I was left cursing myself for teaching my family how to DVR shows).  I wanted to wait until everyone was in bed because it is not a movie a 9 and 6 year old should watch and my wife would spend the time rolling her eyes, asking me when it was over, and unable to understand why the movie could make me laugh until I cry.

So the other night I waited until I saw the light go out in our bedroom then settled in to my sofa and hit ‘Play’.

Not long after Sid Caesar’s caveman discovered music, my own laughter was overshadowed by my memories.  I heard, above the parody, dialogue, and my own laughing, my Dad’s laugh.  My father loved to laugh and got more pleasure out of making other people laugh (usually at him). If you were never lucky enough to be in his company to hear it (as most of you were not), his was a laugh indescribable.  It could fill even a noisy room, was impossible to not make you smile and more than likely, you would find yourself joining him in even if you weren’t quite sure what he was laughing about.  It was a laugh that could bring him to tears given the right circumstances.  Now here I was, alone on my sofa imagining him sitting next to me, laughing at the same jokes I was laughing about.

I miss my Dad’s laugh.

I was happy to be able to have that memory back, even if it only lasted for 92 minutes of the movie.

I watched the entire movie even though it kept me awake much later than I should have stayed awake.  It was worth every minute that passed and every joke that played on my television.  It was one of those subtle moments I so try so hard to find but only makes itself known when fate seems ready.

I kept watching that night, even as the credits rolled.

After almost 7 years of not having him next to me, I still treasure the moments that bring him back.  It doesn’t matter how or why either.  It could be an old jacket hanging in my closet that carries faint traces of his cologne on it, a Q&A about him with my girls, or a Mel Brooks’ comedy from 1981.  I welcome all the memories these moments give to me.  They keep his spirit alive, they remind me of the man he was, and every now and then, they make me laugh, until I cry.

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Posted in crying, Dad, kids, Memories

Breakdown

Posted on July 24, 2011 | 5 Comments

I make no secret about my how much I miss my father.  He has been dead for almost 6 years.  In the time he has been gone, I have made it my mission to do all that I can to remember as many of the moments of his life that I can.  Sometimes all I need to do is close my eyes to see his face and hear his voice.  Sometimes it has been something to trigger a spark of memory. His tools, or a movie, or finding something hidden in the attic of his have all served as catalysts for churning back up old memories.  In one particular case, my memories were kicked back to life while driving in the car.

I was driving with my family the other day. We were on our way to an arcade to celebrate my youngest daughter’s birthday.  I was cruising down a main avenue through the city (trying to keep my sanity between the kids bickering in the backseat and listening to their music on the radio). The avenue is one I have driven on hundreds, maybe thousands of times.  There is a  short side street off of this main avenue that would take us directly to the arcade.  It is a short side street I have also driven on a hundreds maybe thousands of times.

It was on the side street, 8 years ago, I had a breakdown.  I was working, headed to an appointment, when I turned on to the side street. Immediately as I turned there was a cold metallic snap that echoed from the front end of my car. My bumper was now almost scraping the asphalt and the car was wobbling up and down like a Fisher Price vacuum cleaner.  I got out to assess the damage and pray it was only a flat tire (I’m no mechanic. If it isn’t a dead battery or flat tire I’m useless).  As best that I could tell, I was not only broken down but I wasn’t going to be going anywhere in my car any time soon.

I grabbed my cell phone.  I called a towing company to pick up the car then I immediately called the first person who came to my mind.  My dad.

“Hello?”

“Dad, I need your help.”

“Ok. I’ll be right there. Where are you?”

He was there in minutes and I remembered feeling totally relieved when he pulled up. Not because he could fix my car, although he had brought his duct tape and was sure we could tape it up to at least get the car to a garage until I told him about the tow truck coming. I was relieved simply because he was there. When I needed him, he came and it always made me feel better when he did.

Eight years later and almost 6 years after he has died, I took the turn off of Penn Avenue and I heard that cold metallic snap in the front end of my car again. Only this time the snap went off in my mind. My memory began playing back the breakdown of 8 years ago. My kids’ voices (actually their arguing) and the radio vanished, replaced by the sound of my dad’s voice.

It takes seconds to get to the arcade from the side street and no sooner did I flip my turn signal on did my dad’s voice fade out, replaced by my the normal chaos associated with driving my family for any extended period of time (extended period of time being about 3 minutes).

As my wife turned to break up the brouhaha in the backseat, I quietly wished for my dad’s voice to come back but it didn’t.  As I turned in to the arcade’s parking lot thinking, all I could think is ‘Why?’. Why did this memory come back to me after hundreds, maybe thousands of times driving on this street since my first breakdown? Surely there were plenty of times to have the memory stirred again? Maybe I’ll never know? Maybe the ‘Why’ isn’t important? Whatever the reason was, I found myself fighting back a tear. I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. The thought of my newly rediscovered memory of my dad also put a smile on my face. It seemed he helped to keep me from having another breakdown on this short side street.

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Posted in Dad, driving, Memories

Tell him I said ‘Hi’.

Posted on January 26, 2011 | Leave a comment

“Daddy, I talked to Pop Pop.”

This is how my 8 year old began a conversation with me while we were driving in the car.  I was taken off guard by Hannah’s matter of fact and out of the blue statement (so much so, I just about swerved the car into the other lane).  Hannah and Emma’s grandfather, my dad, has been dead for 5 years.

After I regained control of the car and wiped away a welling tear in the corner of my eye, I asked my suddenly psychic 8 year old, “You talked to PopPop?”

“Yeah.  When I was praying, I talked to him.”

“What did he say do you?”

“He said ‘hi’ but I don’t remember the rest.”

“You can’t remember anything else from the conversation?” I wanted to prod her for answers like Dr. Phil prods a husband who calls his wife fat but I could feel the emotion welling up in me and needed to remember we were driving. I needed to remember a red light meant ‘Stop’.

“Daddy, you say I wear my pants like Pop Pop. Over my belly button. That’s why you call me George.”

Emma, my 5 year old, chimed in on the conversation.  George was my dad’s first name and he had a tendency to pull his pants north of his belly button. He was a fashion icon for 8o year old men everywhere.

“That’s right Em.  Sometimes you are a George.” In more ways than she will ever realize.

And that was the last thing I could get out of my mouth. My daughter had rendered me speechless. As I came to a stop at the red light (thankfully remembering to stop), my mind drifted.

Hannah was three years old when my dad died.  Emma was just three months old.  Their memories of their Pop Pop have had to be manufactured by myself, their mother, and the immediate members of my family who were fortunate enough to spend time with him.  The image of their grandfather has been generated by pictures, videos, and an endless amount of stories.  We tell the stories that made my Dad my Dad. Like how he couldn’t sit at a diner without mixing together the half and half with sugar and drink it and, of course, his questionable sense of pant fashion.

What I have been trying to do for the past five years for my kids, my 8 year old and my 5 year old had done for me sitting in the back seat of my car.  They gave life to my Dad’s memory.

The light seemed to stay red for longer than usual.  Under normal circumstances, I would have been openly cursing the length of time of the light and trying to inch forward to maybe hit a “sensor” to turn it green but I was happy to spend a few more moments with my Dad’s memory.

I think about my father every day of my life.  There has not been a day that has gone by when I haven’t.  I have written about him.  I have referenced his insight.  I have been told by people how much I remind them of him.  And yet, for some reason, the innocence and excitement of my kids as they talked about the grandfather they hardly knew, captured my emotion.

As I continued to sit at the light, I could no longer hear the music playing or the girls now enthralled in a “stop touching me” argument.  I could only hear myself calling out to my dad and waiting for him to call back.  Because despite him occupying a large portion of my daily thoughts, any conversation I have had with him, has always been one sided.  There has not been a moment when he “spoke” to me no matter how much I wished him to.  In fact, at times, I wasn’t so sure he even heard me when I spoke to him.

I was hopeful, with this rush of emotion and memory flooding through me from the front seat of my car that I could hear his voice again so I called out to my Dad, hopeful to hear his voice. The car remained silent and the light turned green.

The music on the radio and the girls arguing both came back.  They were my smelling salts, knocking me back in to consciousness as I put my foot on the gas.

When we pulled up to our house, I found my words again. I didn’t say anything about the “power of prayer” to Hannah and I didn’t ask her any questions about trying to remember her conversation with Pop Pop.  I didn’t even thank her and Emma (though I probably should have) for breathing a refreshed life into my dad’s memory.  Instead, I pulled up to our house, put the car in park and turned to my daughter.

“Hannah, can you do me a favor?”

“Sure Daddy.”

The next time you talk to Pop Pop…could you tell him I said ‘hi’?”

Hannah nodded her head, “Sure Daddy.”

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Posted in Dad, Emma, Hannah, kids, Memories