Back in the Saddle (or, Why My Mother is The Shit)

If you know me in person, and some of you do, then you know that my dad passed away almost two years ago. (Two years?!? Time heals not. It is simply the blessing of the fading memory of pain.) He and my mom were together for 20 years. Needless to say, she was more than devastated, as we all were, when he passed away at age 48. Too, too young.

I don't know if this is a saying, but I'm convinced that it is easier to let go of someone you loved tremendously, someone that you had a wonderful relationship with, than it is to get past a complicated and tumultuous relationship when the other person has died. My mom and dad had a really lovely relationship. It was filled with the small, romantic things that everyone says they want: hidden candies behind the coffee maker, just so she knows he's thinking about her; a bouquet of fresh flowers every Friday ("Friday Flowers"); washing and waxing her car on Sundays--all the good stuff. While the sudden way in which he died was traumatic and completely heartbreaking, we still have all of these small, sweet memories to invoke his presence anytime we choose. A tearful smile, remembering those thoughtful things that showed us every day how he loved us.

After my dad passed, my husband and I moved in with my mom for two months. She was less than a shell of a person, and we constantly worried for her well-being. But my mother comes from a line of women that are both strong, crazy, and crazystrong. And I really mean that. If you ever meet me, you will know what I'm talking about.

My mother is the strongest woman I have ever known. My father passing is one of the lesser traumas in her lifetime. She is my she-ro (thanks for the slang, Verm).

So my mom, now a sexy 50 year old, is single (she refuses to don "widow." She says, "I'm not some dried up old woman that is going to whither away until I die, dammit!") for the first time in a while, and is living alone for the first time in her entire LIFE. She is retired from being an incredibly successful business woman, she is building a new home, and is finally starting to ask herself this question: What do I really want?

I don't know what other people's experiences are, but from my observation, it is hard for single, middle-aged women to find decent dates. My mom, who had been dodging dates left and right, has complained for the past year that all the guys her age are bald, fat, and generally unattractive. And for the most part, I have to agree with her. Where do all the cute older guys go? Friends have been trying to set her up on dates, but with, like, 76 year old retired doctors.

Now, for reference, my mom is a very young 50 year old. She has gray hair, but her face doesn't look a day over 30 (good news for me! woo!). She has an amazing rack, she loves to play, she is learning how to drink (lightweight doesn't begin to describe her tolerance), and she is still in her sexual prime. She doesn't want to date someone that can't control their urine stream. Shit, she doesn't want to date someone with slightly thinning hair! (My dad had a full head of REALLY thick hair. What can I say, she's spoiled! In that regard.) I told her she was just gonna have to find a younger guy. She laughed that off, as she does most of my compliments because she doesn't think she deserves it. Wait, let me rephrase that: she used to laugh that off.

Lately, my mom has blossomed. And not just come out of mourning. She used this horrible experience (losing the love of your life, when your life was really just beginning) to grow herself, to become a better her, and to take life by the horns and really experience it. I guess the long and short of it is: my mom has a boyfriend.

Yes! She does! For the first time in 20 years! And he is HOT. He is 6'3", dark hair, a political writer and commentator (for which I will forgive him, and probably draw him into a lively debate at some point down the road), a singer, and best of all, he is totally infatuated with her.

And she is the happiest I have ever seen her. GO MOM! I love you.

Reflecting on Father's Day

Well, I hoped I would miss it. I told my brain to completely forget the day—to ignore all commercials, sales, and mumbo jumbo that might possibly remind me. Luckily my friends are all sensitive enough to not mention it.

After losing two fathers by the time I was 26, Father's Day holds nothing but pain.

My first father, my biological father, was a complicated man. He was the best and worst of all things. The best dad, the worst dad. The best and worst husband. The most intelligent, and the most ignorant.

My mom divorced him when I was three, after finding out that he repeatedly cheated on her. With men. In reststop bathrooms. In the early 1980s. He was excommunicated from his church—the only thing in his life that really helped him cling to a false reality. I believe, in my heart, that his horrible actions were a result of not being true to himself. I wish, for his sake and for my family's sake, that he had come out of the closet. I think things might have been very different for us all, if he had. But he had too much fear. He lived in a world where everything around him said that he was evil for having these feelings, and he denied this part of himself until he died. He died when I was 14, of complications from HIV. He told me he was sick only 6 months before he died. He never told my younger brother, and to this day I see the anger still in my brother's heart.

I think that I was sad when he died, partly because I was young and was experiencing what death meant, but also in part because I was expected to be sad. There were good and bad things about my bio dad, and that would have been fine if he had lived long enough for us to work those things out, but he didn't, and so I can only look back on our relationship from the perspective of an angry, hurt, and scared adolescent.

My second father, my "heart" father, was the best of men. He was kind, thoughtful, strong. I often referred to him as the epitome of "strong silent" type. He and my mom married when I was ten, and helped me through the death of my bio father. He was my rock. He was the opposite of my bio father in every way. Where my bio dad was selfish, my heart father was concerned with others first. Where my bio dad was thoughtless, my heart father was considerate and thoughtful.

My heart father came to every soccer and volleyball game; he came to every concert. He cried (silently and with much masculine pride, trying to conceal his tears) on my 18th birthday was he and my mom gave me a particularly beautiful gift. He was a man; proud of his children, loving to his wife, and hardworking. I can't think of a time where I didn't see him working. Even on weekends, after he had spent all week traveling, he would work around the house and the yard, making secret passages in the walls (seriously) or raised beds for my mother's garden.

He was a strong man. He had three heart attacks before he was 40, and never once complained. He was a walk-it-off kind of man.

Last year, 2 months before he was to walk me down the aisle, he died of a heart attack. He was 48. There are no words to describe how devastating this was, and still is. Even now, as I write this, tears are streaming down my face. Even though it was been over a year since he died, I still feel it as though it happened yesterday.

When they tell you that time heals, they are wrong. Time merely helps your memory of pain to fade.

I am thankful, though, that his heart attack took him quickly. He did not suffer; we did not have to live hooked up to tubes and monitors. He was at the beach with his best friend, and had spent the weekend doing exactly what he wanted: smoking cigars, fishing, drinking beer. I couldn't have asked for a better way for him to leave us. My family was spared the heartbreak of finding his body, or seeing him in the hospital.

But now I have the heartbreak of knowing he will never see his grandchildren, or celebrate another wedding anniversary, or will never dance with either of his daughters.

My only memories of that day he died, and the haze of days that followed, are the words I screamed when I knew he was dead. Oh my GOD, NO. They haunt me. They will for the rest of my life.

Father's Day is over for me.