I don’t know why time should matter, the marking of one week to the next shouldn’t make grief any more or less burdensome, and yet, I had a terrible day yesterday. Only when I was walking home did I remember that yesterday marked two weeks since dad died, and maybe that was part of it. Only, how? Year-long anniversaries, I can understand. But two weeks? Maybe the part of my brain that likes to race to conclusions was struggling with how little time has elapsed and how much has nonetheless changed.

Last night we watched Man on Wire, the documentary about Philippe Petit’s highwire walk between the WTC towers. I was thinking about 1974 and whether my father was still working in Rockefeller Center – had they moved to New Rochelle already? – and before I could catch the sneaky little bastard the thought jumped into being, “I should ask him if he remembers it”, and that was hard.

It’s all these things I had yet to ask that sink my valiant little boat. At least I know that my dad would have thought walking on a tightrope between the tallest buildings in Manhattan was the work of a lunatic idiot. He might even have used a colorful swearword. No doubts there.

I remember thinking when I was in the hospital for my appendectomy, back in 2003, that being sick in a hospital isn’t as tragically glamorous up close as I thought it would be. Or really, tragicaly glamorous at all. I didn’t relish the concern, or the doting, or even the lovely flowers. I just wanted to be up, and better, and eating cheeseburgers. I don’t know quite what it says about my mind that I had assumed any level of tragic glamour. Too many childhood viewings of Shirley Temple’s Heidi, maybe?

This is like that. I think I imagined the grief I’d feel over losing my dad and the real enchilada doesn’t look much like it. I probably thought I’d cry more, or more around people other than Stuart. I know I thought I’d have been a wreck at the funeral – I wasn’t. I remember being terrified at being around his body right after the life tiptoed out of it. I wasn’t, funnily, it was still like being around dad. That was still nice.

But when I do cry, when I do feel it, hoo boy I feel it. I said to Stuart that I felt silly now, for any grief I’d ever felt over any of my ex-boyfriends (sorry guys). He asked why, and I said that until This, there wasn’t anything that had made me cry harder than lost love. And now it seems quaint, trite, almost adorable.

I had lunch with Simon, who I have dubbed The Wise Man (it says so in my phone when he rings) and we talked about grief and religion, and whether there’s any comfort I’m missing out on by not believing. I suppose you can’t walk into a bargain with Belief – you make me feel better in exchange for my membership! – but I wanted to know if it helped. I wanted to know whether I’m missing out by putting Life and Death in two distinct, irreconcilable boxes at opposite ends of a room. My favorite thing about Simon is that he thinks he’s some sort of curmudgeonly misanthrope while actually having a heart bigger than Texas. A lot like my dad, actually.

Aside from thinking all these deep fucking thoughts, I also had an amazing massage on Thursday, and I had a wisdom tooth removed yesterday. The ridiculous along with the sublime, it seems.

I’m getting to the end of my gracious length of rope – already! Everyone wants to know how I’m doing, and the right answer involves stuff like “he died peacefully” and “he was such a great man” and “we didn’t want him to suffer” and “impossible recovery” and “hospice care” and “holding up”. I’m tired of all those terms, even though they’re absolutely true.

Today I’m feeling more like telling people that I miss the shit out of him already and it’s only been a week. How I’d see him there when we exited the train station at New Haven, standing by the car and wearing a plaid shirt and corduroys with the burgundy suspenders, and he’d look so pleased as punch to see me, and I’d be pleased as punch to see him too, and only one hug was enough to say that. How I never got tired of hearing him say “hi, love” down the phone even if it was third time that day. I feel like telling people that anything is better than gone, that even when he was sick and wordless I loved sitting by the hospital bed and just looking at him, how I’d bring a book and never read it because my eyes just wanted to rest on his face, a face I’ve known my whole life and maybe even a little before.

Last night I dreamed that he came downstairs and we were all so happy to see him even though we knew he’d died, and how he explained very simply that we’d always be able to sit down in my dreams and have dinner together, and that I could tell him what was going on and he’d remember it the next time. I’d like to think my brain is so tired of thinking about Before so now it’s finding ways to live in an After.

I guess there’s no polite way to say all that when someone asks you how you’re
doing. They’re not asking you whether you’re bouncing back. What they mean is, can you carry on? And I guess I can.