*This post was originally written on October 25th, 2016*
This post is going to be extremely personal. Possibly even unpleasant at times.
My father, Don, died back in June and my older sister, mother and I planned to take his ashes to Prescott, Arizona to have a small memorial for him in his favorite place on the Earth.
There is a lot of backstory here. My dad was not a good father. We did not have a good relationship. He was an alcoholic, and that feels like an oversimplification. It was all so damned complicated.
He was always around when I was young, but never emotionally available. We would rarely have guests over because we didn’t want to disturb the “bear” who worked nights and slept during the day.
When I was twelve I think I began to have a sense that my family wasn’t “normal.” One particular night I tried desperately to have a family dinner at the table because that was what “normal” families did, at least on TV. My dad and my sister began to scream at each other before dinner was even on the table and I threw a fit. That was the day my whole world came crashing down around me. My Dad had retreated to the bedroom, his safe haven from everything, and my sister, frustrated, shouted at me. “Don’t you know that Dad is an alcoholic?” I felt so much betrayal. The world I knew wasn’t real, the facade crumbling around me as my eyes were opened to the truth. My heart broke and I felt so foolish for being unable to see it for so long. The truth was, no I did not know. I saw none of the evidence because my father was entrenched in deep denial, was great at hiding all his empty beer cans, and my mother and my sister took the brunt of his abuse and they did their best to protect me from most of it.
So many things suddenly made sense. All the times he didn’t show up to pick me up from after school day-care. I was often the last child there, way after closing time. After several frantic phone calls by the teacher, he would arrive, smelling of beer and would drive me home, often running red lights. The stench that permeated his entire being was finally identified: the stench of booze and cigarettes. That stench permeated all of my memories of him and tainted them forever.
We became a shattered family. My mom escaped by working her ass off as an Oncology nurse, sixty to seventy hours a week. My sister escaped by moving out. I had nowhere to go so I escaped within myself, with music and my imagination. When I was fourteen, my mom and dad divorced and my dad moved into an apartment ten minutes away. I was also the only person in my family that my dad still had any contact with. He would take me on day trips, sometimes to the local aquarium, sometimes to the museum. He once took me to an exhibit of original Bob Kane Batman comics from the 1930’s that I thought were really cool. Everyday he would pick me up from school, buy me food, then take me home. When I was sixteen, we even went on a couple of road trips to old ghost towns and cemeteries around the California and Arizona desert. It was times like these where I would see glimpses of the man I wanted to know.
My mom was uncomfortable with the road trips, and she was right to be. Our family therapist (our father refused to go to therapy so it was my mom, sister and I) was also surprised and thought it was a bad idea. This was, after all, the man who refused help for his problems and was still an alcoholic, even though he wasn’t drinking on these road trips. My dad was really hurt and betrayed when my mom told him I couldn’t go on any more road trips with him. It was the first time he gave me a heart full of guilt. I learned the hard way that he used guilt and insults as his weapon of choice. I gave him a birthday card and he wanted to know where his cake was. I gained weight and he said I was getting fat, just like my mother. He tore us down regularly.
When I turned seventeen, things changed. I began dating a boy and didn’t need him to pick me up from school anymore. We fought about it. Maybe he felt he wasn’t needed anymore because he was no longer the only man in my life. His presence in my life began to fade away. The only time I would hear from him was by getting a birthday card and Xmas card in the mail only ever signed, “Love, Dad.” It was not enough and it was disappointing. I had wanted more but he couldn’t give me more. So I wrote him a letter telling him not to mail me cards anymore. I am sure he was hurt, but I was hurt too. It took me a long time to realize that we never really talked. We never had “heart to hearts.” He never asked me about my life, about my friends, about my boyfriend, whom he had been in the presence of many times.
So he disappeared from my life.
My mom, my sister and I moved to Carlsbad, California right after I graduated high school in 2002. Two years later, my dad called me out of the blue. My sister and I were open to giving him another chance. We met him in San Juan Capistrano, and though the day was awkward as hell, we had a decent time. The door was open. Over the next year or so we spent time with him and we moved him down to a senior living apartment complex in Oceanside to be near us. We brought out old pictures and he would tell us about his life. I was seeing those fragments and shadows of the man I had wanted to know. He was giving me hope again.
I was still bubbling with anger underneath my skin. I was often tense, always around my dad, even though I was unsure why. I often wrestled with the guilt of having so much anger. Sometime between 2005 and 2006, he needed cataract surgery and I was driving him to his appointments and eventually his surgery. I was beginning to feel like I was being taken advantage of. He had fallen into a habit of making his needs above all others. He would demand rides to his appointments and never say thank you. It’s the little things, right? The relationship felt one-sided. Again, we never really talked. He never seemed interested in my life. I was giving too much and it didn’t feel reciprocated. We still never talked about the past pain and hurt. The day of his surgery was the last day we actually spoke to each other. His appointment was close to my sister’s house so after his surgery we went there to rest and the plan was for me to drive him back to his apartment after traffic had lightened up. He had gotten really whiny. He was uncomfortable, which I understood. He just wanted to go home and wasn’t listening to my reasoning. He was also being particularly cantankerous. It was enough to pop the cork off of the years of anger and resentment within me and I unleashed them in a short burst of shouting. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember the volume and the energy with which the words exploded from my mouth. I imagine it was something like “I am done with this,” and I am pretty sure I ended it with a “fuck you.” My sister ended up driving him home, taking her anger out on her gas pedal, giving him a piece of her mind on the way, and getting a speeding ticket just for shits and giggles. My sister was also done with him that day.
My dad died on June 19th (Father’s Day), 2016 in San Diego, California. He had stage 4 kidney cancer and had charmed all of the nurses and doctors until he passed. My sister, my mother and I planned to take his remains to Prescott, Arizona, his favorite place on Earth, to have a small memorial and say our goodbyes.
The Trip
Truth be told, I have not been sleeping well since my dad’s death. My emotions have been a tangle. Apparently when you bottle and bury your emotions, they can be really hard to untangle. I don’t recommend it. The week leading up to the trip was exceptionally stressful as I was getting more and more apprehensive about it. My sister had a horrible back injury the week before and would not be able to go herself, which was extremely stressful and disappointing for her as well as myself. I was not confident that I would have the strength without her. Life rarely goes as planned, (and if it does, don’t trust it).
My mother and I flew out Thursday afternoon from Portland and landed in Phoenix that evening. We picked up our rental car and drove to my Uncle Red’s house. My sister had shipped my dad to their house in a little FedEx box and it arrived before we got there. My Uncle Red placed it in front of the fireplace where I tried not to think about it. It was the closest I’ve been to my dad in over seven years.
After another night of not sleeping well, I shoved the box my dad was in into my backpack, then my mom and I drove up to Prescott, Arizona. We played the Beatles and talked about my dad while singing along to my favorite Beatles songs (it was my playlist) until my iPod randomly died not even halfway there. We all have fond memories of listening to the Beatles. My dad loved music, and the Beatles were important to us.
We arrived in Prescott (pronounced pres-kit by the locals), which has probably grown a lot since my dad was last there. Prescott was established in 1864 and was the capital of the Arizona territory for a number of years before Phoenix became the official capital. It has a really cool historic downtown with old brick and wood storefronts common for Old West towns. There are many decent restaurants, bars, and just really cool things to check out.
Unfortunately we didn’t explore much. We stopped at Gurley’s Grill downtown and ate sandwiches, which were pretty decent. Then we went to find Goldwater Lake, a place I saw pictures of and thought, that’ll do.
There were trees and it was pretty. I think I chose a damned fine place to say goodbye. The lake is not very big, you could walk around it in a short time. The day use fee is $3 and it was an 11 minute drive from Prescott. It’s just inside the Prescott National Forest. My mom is recovering from anemia caused by a horrible ulcer and had a hard time walking around in general. She is truly a trooper. I let her take her time as we found a good spot and hiked to it. There aren’t a lot of steep climbs around the lake thankfully. We found a little spot with rocks right on the water’s edge. My mom leaned against a big rock and I sat on another. She was blocking the view of a nearby fisherman and we were far enough away from the families playing on the dock that we felt we had enough privacy.
This place is pretty quiet with exception to the people enjoying themselves. We could hear nearby folks talking, families playing on the dock, and country music was playing from a ways away. I hoped that my dad would never feel lonely in a place like this. At this point I opened the FedEx box my dad was shipped in to find a black plastic box. I opened the plastic box and inside was a plastic bag that held his ashes. Now, I have never seen human remains before. It’s almost what you would expect. Ash and little grayish white bone fragments. It is humbling to think about. My dad was around 6 feet tall and he was reduced to a small bag of ash and dust that didn’t weigh more than 2 pounds.
My mom and I talked about my dad some more. We hoped that he liked the spot I chose, and that he always liked country music more than the rest of us so he would have good company here. My mom then said her short farewell, and I said mine, expressing sadness at not being able to know him better, wishing him freedom from the pain of the past and hope that he will find happiness in his next life. We let him go, released him back to the earth and sat in silence.
In the silence, the country music wasn’t playing anymore. Someone was playing a flute in the distance. My mom says it was “Amazing Grace,” but I don’t think so. It was very appropriate for the mood though. We heard applause and then someone began to play and sing “Turn! Turn! Turn!” by the Byrds on their acoustic guitar. click here to hear the original with lyrics
I don’t know why there was a performance happening by the lake but I am glad it was. It felt right. We sat there for quite a while, watching little fish jump out of the water to catch water beetles.
Final Thoughts
We flew back home yesterday and I finally got some decent sleep. As I was writing all of this down, I realized that I have equated my lack of sleep the last few months with my dad being restless and impatient. Like his spirit was not letting me sleep because he was in a rush to get going. The man can’t even give me a break after death! Logically I realize that those feelings are more of a projection of my feelings and I was the one anxious to let him go.
I am glad I got to take charge and be the one who released my dad. My heart already feels lighter. My sister has been burdened by him and making decisions on his behalf as the oldest child and I always felt so powerless in those situations. For once I was able to be strong for her, for my mother, and most of all, for myself. I think I will always feel some hurt in my heart from him, but I think I was able to let go of a lot this weekend.
Mostly I was just glad to finally get some sleep. Here’s hoping it isn’t a fluke.
Dawning 