Father's Day Is Always Hard When Your Dad Is Gone

I'm older than my father ever was.

As bizarre as that sounds, it's even weirder to experience. Once we become adults, we are always comparing ourselves with our parents. What were they doing when they were the age I am now? Am I as successful as they were then? Am I happier? I think those are all pretty normal things to ask and think. It's not a competition but more of a measuring stick. 

My Dad died when he was 42. I'm now 44. It's strange to lose that measuring stick. When a parent dies young, and you outlive them, it's also a reminder of how much time they lost.

Nothing makes those kinds of feelings bubble up for me more than Father's Day. Not birthdays, Christmas or any other day. This is my 30th Father's Day without my Dad and they all have made me pretty sad. I'm lucky in that other than my father dying, the rest of my family has been healthy. My Mom is doing great and the rest of my family is as well. My grandparents are all gone now but they all lived long lives. I don't really miss my father on Thanksgiving or Christmas anymore because the rest of my family is still there. We can all celebrate together.

But Father's Day is exactly that and mine has been gone for a very long time. So long, in fact, that I think I can offer a unique perspective if you have recently lost yours.

The first year is the hardest. Everything is a reminder that they are gone. You haven't had time to create new traditions and you are only left with a giant emptiness in your current ones. You want to call them and ask for advice or for support. You'll pass by a television show they loved or their favorite song will play at the supermarket and you'll end up in tears. You'll wake up from a dream and forget for a couple seconds that they are gone. When you remember, it hits you like a ton of bricks.

These things pass. It takes time but one by one, they do go away. Some take a few years. I had nightmares every week for about five years that my Dad wasn't dead but just gone and when he came back, he was so angry we moved on without him. Then one day, I never had that dream again and haven't for 25 years. Grief hurts but gets replaced.

We moved from New York to New Hampshire when I was 9 years old on June 23, 1989. It was my last day of fourth grade. That's also the same day Batman with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson came out. As mad as I was that was leaving my friends and cable TV for a dirt road and an antenna, I was equally upset that I had to wait a few days to see this movie. I loved Batman. Still do.

Anyway, we were moving the stuff from the truck into the new house and my Dad asked me and my Uncle if we could take a 5 minute break because he was tired. My uncle and I exchanged a worried glance. My father NEVER asked to take a break. He spent the last 18 years as a stagehand at Radio City Music Hall and on Broadway. Moving boxes into a house should have been a cakewalk.

Instead, this 37 year old man wound up spending the next year and half having trouble staying awake more than 8 hours a day. It seemed like we moved to New Hampshire so this guy could just sleep. He went from being the hardest working guy I ever met to the laziest overnight. Nothing made any sense. He saw doctors who thought he was just looking for pain pills. 

Then came October 3, 1990. 

If you are a Red Sox fan, you might know that day better as the Tom Brunansky Game. It was Game 162 and the Red Sox just needed to win against the White Sox to clinch the AL East. The Red Sox led 3-1 in the 9th with closer Jeff Reardon on the mound. The White Sox had two runners up with 2 out and Ozzie Guillen up. If the Sox lost this game, the Blue Jays could win the AL East. Then this happened:

I was there. In fact, I was about 10 rows back of Brunansky making that catch. I never saw the catch. I saw his focused face seemingly running towards me and then all at once he vanished. A grown up in front of me lifted his arms in excitement. I had seen baseball history! The Red Sox had clinched the AL East.

It was the first time I had been to Fenway Park. I had already been to Yankee Stadium and Shea Stadium at that point but this was different. The grass was so green. The Green Monster was so close but seemed almost mythical. I felt like I was walking into a movie. It was one of the best experiences of my childhood.

I also think of it as the last experience of my childhood. Unbeknownst to me, my father received a phone call about an hour before we left for Fenway telling him that had cancer and the prognosis was very bad. My parents waited until the car ride home from the game to tell me. 

The next four years really sucked.

They initially told him he had 6 months to live. But doctors at Dana-Farber were able to extend his life for a few years. My Dad agreed to be a lab rat for them and told them to do whatever it took to extend his life long enough to walk my little sister down the aisle one day. He did, at the time, unheard of amounts of chemotherapy. He did a Whipple procedure which removes organs. Because my father had been so healthy, the cancer went undiscovered for a very long time and spread all over his body. But also because he otherwise was so young and healthy, he was able to withstand almost unbelievable levels of treatment.

He was never the same physically or mentally. He left part of his soul in that Boston hospital. He came home but he did so as a very angry man. The guy that was so kind to me for the first 10 years of my life was replaced by someone rightfully pissed off he was going to die a young man. 

He ended up dying at home on December 13, 1994. He had been mostly in a coma the last couple of weeks but the night before he died, he was lucid.  We had a great talk for about an hour. He never woke up again.

He also never walked my sister down the aisle. I ended up doing that. He had already been dead for 15 years.

That is a very sad story but it also happened a very long time ago. If you asked me if I miss my Dad now, it's not a simple answer. Of course, I wish he was alive. I still think about my Dad every day. Every single day. I don't think that every goes away. Parents have such a huge impact on us. If I'm still around in 30 years, I bet I still will think of him every single day.

But I don't know if I miss him. He's been gone for so long, I can't imagine him walking around the same present day we exist in. I would give anything to be able to talk to him or for him to see and meet my sister's kids. To spend a Father's Day with him makes my eyes well up just thinking about it. So, in those terms, I miss him dearly.

I don't think to call him anymore. He's been gone so long, he never even owned a cell phone. Except for Father's Day, that emptiness that lived in my gut has been gone for decades. Time does heal these things. My memories of him are like looking at an old photo album that has turned kind of yellowish with age. His existence in this world and this time feels so foreign. Can you miss someone that you can't imagine being here?

If you just lost a parent, I promise it gets easier. We are supposed to bury our parents. It's the natural order of life. The good memories also begin to overtake the painful ones. When I think of my Dad now, the first image is the healthy stagehand who would bring me into the city where we would see great movies like Die Hard between Broadway shows he had to work. It's not the angry sick guy who was slowly dying in front of me.

Best of all, the answers to the questions you may wish your lost parents could answer are already there if you look hard enough. For example, if I ever wonder if my Dad would be proud of me, I think back to when I was about 8 years old with my Dad at work in Manhattan. We were on our way to get a hot dog and the guy running the cart pointed at me and bellowed "I know you!" This was New York City with a million faces walking by. How did anyone know me?

He then told me how I was getting good grades in third grade and said I was doing a fine job being a big brother and all of these wonderful things about me. I asked him how he knew these things. He told me that my Dad is there everyday getting a hot dog but also always pulling out his wallet and proudly telling him all about his family. I looked over at my Dad who sheepishly shrugged.

Of course my Dad would be proud of me. You know what? Even if your father is gone, I bet if you think about it, you'll find your Dad is proud of you too. 

If you're having a tough day on Sunday, think of those kind of moments and I promise that a difficult day will get a little easier. But the emptiness on Father's Day? I'm only 30 years into it and hopefully have many more years to go…but I am starting to believe that pain might be permanent.