Category Archives: Memories of my Dad

“My father is the standard by which all subsequent men in my life have been judged.” – Kathryn McCarthy Graham

During the summer of 1998 my dad gave me a small book of quotes and poems called The Love Between Fathers and Daughters. He signed the inside of it, I put it on my nightstand and beyond that, I’m not sure I gave it much extra thought. I was 19, I had a lot going on at the time — my friends and boys were very important — but even at the time I did think it was a sweet gesture.

In August of 1998 he passed away and it became the last note he ever wrote to me that I kept. It goes without saying I pay a lot more attention to it now. I see how our handwriting is similar and it reminds me that he was always thinking of me. His only child, I was always at the center of his universe, and there was a comfort that I carried with me daily because of that relationship we had that I didn’t even realize was there until it was gone.

It’s been 15 years since he’s been gone and today he would have turned 59. There is part of me that mourns his loss a bit every year on this date, and this year will certainly be no different. But also today I find myself thinking more about how grateful I am for the bar that he set in my life. He was a spectacular athlete who made a successful career in the NFL when everyone told him it was impossible. He was a family man who never let a day go by without telling the women in his life that he loved him. He had the kind of smile and infectious laugh that you could hear from all the way down the street and he was willing to share it with anyone would listen. He was a loyal friend and the type of guy you could count on no matter what because he believe at the very core of his being that one should always do what they say they will do.

Also: He was my dad.

And while I didn’t realize it at the time, the book that he gave me about the love between fathers and daughters did capture something incredible. Some of us experience that love for many years, and others of us get shortchanged. But if you are lucky enough to still have it in your life, hold that close to your heart today, because I will tell you what, it is something that I have yet to find anywhere over these last 15 years. It’s irreplaceable. And while there is a part of me that feels sad about it, I know that who he was lives on inside of me every single day of my life. And for that, I really do feel grateful. Some days I am so grateful that it hurts.

This is a very grainy picture of the house where I grew up in Fremont, California.

We drove by it Saturday night and despite the terrible lighting and the fact that we had a 2 hour drive ahead of us, I insisted on stopping to take a picture of it. This is the sidewalk where I used to play hopscotch. The street where I learned to ride a bike. That window on the right is where our two golden retrievers used to sit and stand guard, waiting for someone to come home with their noses sticking to the window. This neighborhood is where I made my first friends, walked to school and indulged my teenaged entrepreneurial tendencies by starting a little babysitting ring. It was a good house, and I lived there from the time I was shorter than our kitchen table until the end of high school.

My parents sold that house when I was 17. I went away to college and never really got to come back “home,” although they stayed living in the same town. A couple of years later my dad passed away, and though I spent a year living back in this city where I grew up, I eventually moved on to Los Angeles and then to Sacramento (where I live now) because my mom and grandparents had made their way up there. This year I will have spent as many years away from Fremont as I did living there.

I moved to Sacramento to go to college and it was somewhat arbitrary. I didn’t imagine staying long and I never imagined calling it home. But then of course I met a boy. And slowly but surely friends and family starting moving up towards our direction. I’d run into high school friends at my job, and see the parents of people I graduated with at the grocery store. More family moved closer, good friends moved away from my hometown to other cities and states, and little by little there were less people to go back and visit in Fremont.

My Aunt and Uncle, however, continued to remain there in their home of more than 20 years. In my mind, that house is filled with just as many memories as my own. It is where my cousins and I would have sleepovers, where we would run around in the backyard. As I child I remember it was the fun house with cable television and the Good Cereal. (Sorry, Mom. Grape Nuts was not that exciting as a kid. :)) And when they sold it about a month ago to move up to a little town about 20 minutes from Garrett’s and my house I was ridiculously excited! More family nearby — YES! But also, there was a part of my that was just a tiny bit sad.

No more family in Fremont.

Saturday afternoon my mom and Garrett and I ventured back to Fremont for a big friends and family BBQ and one last hurrah at my aunt and uncle’s house. It is so exciting that they are starting a new chapter, retiring, moving closer to us, and building their dream house. But it also tugged on the heart strings just a bit that this chapter of my hometown was being closed for good. I grew up there. Many of my cousins grew up there. All of our parents grew up there. It’s where my dad made a name for himself, and where he died. There are memories around every corner, and now there will be no trace of us.

As with any goodbye, there is a little sadness. But when one chapter ends, another starts and that is exactly what we were celebrating on Saturday. There were family, friends and neighbors in spades all clinking their glasses to good things and good lives. Garrett and I did not resist the siren song of red wine as we thought we might, but after 32 days of clean eating and no drinking, it was a lovely day and occasion in which to imbibe!

All of us will miss that house and that town for sure, but we will carry the good memories with us as we all start our own families.

The Fremont chapter is over, but the book of our family is long and ever evolving.

The thing about time is that it just keeps moving. It doesn’t pause for anyone to get caught up, make their way or catch their breath. Every once in a while we stop long enough to do the math, count the days, sing Happy Birthday, note the month, marvel at years that have gone by — but even as we do it, time flies flies right by with no regard to your particular goals or agendas.

For me, today, 14 years have gone by. It’s a day where I always pause and note the passage.

The pain of losing a parent doesn’t get better. People tell you (and genuinely hope for you, I believe) that time will heal all wounds but the truth is that time is ruthless and unfeeling. And the relationship between time and pain is nowhere near linear. When it comes to healing, time actually fails quite spectacularly, in my opinion. I try and re-focus the sentiment in order to assuage my grief: Time does not heal all wounds, but it does allow you to find a comfort level with the pain. Yes, this sounds better. And in a way this is slightly more accurate, but it still doesn’t get to the root of the experience.

This week, as the date has approached and I have paused to feel that passage. I have again sought out a way for my mind to make sense of this experience. Of this loss. It’s a continuous adventure actually, trying to figure it all out, and the event itself is a tiny scratch on the camera lens through which I view every single day of my life. This year it feels very present.

We are trying to plan a wedding. We are taking steps towards having a baby. There is no way to get through these types of moments without being acutely aware that my father is gone and will not be a part of any of it. They are happy and momentous occasions, and to go through them without focusing on what is missing will take discipline, because no matter how you dress it all up, there will be an empty space where he should be.

But emptiness is not the only experience. I mentioned discipline, and the thing about this entire situation — this event that has shaped who I am in how I live — is that I am no stranger to discipline as a coping mechanism. In the past few years I have felt more motivated than ever to get my health in check. People ask me all the time how I stay so disciplined and I always struggle with how to answer. I hear on a regular basis, “How do you do what you do?” “I don’t have that kind of time or energy.” “I can’t be so extreme, but I appreciate that you are so focused.” And I totally get all of that. I wish I could tell you my discipline comes from a pill or a beverage or an inspirational quote pinned on a pinboard near you. But the truth is my discipline comes from a place of self-preservation.

What motivates me to get out of bed in the morning, or to get into the gym, or to eat strictly for 30 days like a crazy person is that one morning I woke up, got dressed, ate breakfast and watched my father collapse on our living room floor. I watched his lips turn blue and his face get puffy and the life slip right out of him in a matter of seconds. It happened in an instant, and from that day forward he was gone. No trace of our times spent together except for what has lived on in my memory. On that day he became a story. He became past tense. He became a bookended period of time.

Things change faster than your brain can process it, and this event for me that has left, among other things, an indelible drive to take advantage of my own life. A drive to make sure I do all that I can to make sure the hole I leave in the lives of my friends and family as small as possible. I am motivated and I am disciplined because it helps me compartmentalize my pain. It helps the world around me make sense. And it is not something that I would want to advise another person on. I am not trying to win at life, or prove that I’m the best or be an inspiration. I am just a girl who is trying to make sense of it all, and more importantly trying to make the most of her time.

Today is my dad’s birthday, and he would have been 58. It’s hard to believe he has been gone for so long but I can honestly say that this has been a good year for me so far in the Grief Management category. I know that sounds silly. He’s been gone for 14 years and I’m still managing grief, but there it is. But today I don’t feel the huge pull of loss, as I have in the past. Today I am sort of overwhelmed with gratitude, so I’m going to make a right turn. Today, instead of talking about my dad, I think it’s high time I talk about my mom.

You see, my mom kind of gets the shaft around here. I mean, my dad has a category all to himself just because he isn’t around whereas I talk to my mom at least once a day and she has to share one with the entire rest of my family. Actually we were laughing about that this weekend.

My mom came into town on Friday and stayed a couple days, and while she only lives 30 minutes away it is so rare these days that we get to spend THAT MUCH TIME just hanging out. We had dinner at Roxy and there were cocktails and appetizers and goat cheese smothered burgers and great conversation. It was pouring down rain, but I am telling you nothing was going to dampen our Girls’ Night Out! Then we headed over to the 24th Street Theater and caught a performance of Legally Blonde The Musical and giggled until way past our bedtimes (Mom and I are early to bed, early to rise kind of gals!) and schemed about all of the cooking we are going to do this coming weekend in celebration of my Aunt’s birthday.

Saturday we got up at the CRACK OF DAWN, because that’s what we do when we hang out. There is never enough time so we always end up getting up at 5am and yapping and planning over our morning coffee. She went to CrossFit with Garrett and I since we had to squeeze our Open Workout and cheered us both on like it was HER JOB. And then we all came home and did some relaxing until she eventually had to head home.

It was such a blast!

And on a day like today, where I am certainly feeling the loss of one of my parents, I continue to have gratitude in the fact that the silver lining of losing my dad is that there is no one I am closer to than my mom. We’ve been through a lot together, she and I. Some very tough and very dark times, just the two of us. And our relationship reflects that — there is no one I feel more proud of, or more protective of than my mom.

When you are an only child and you lose a parent, and entire third of your family is gone. What remains is the kind of bond that can’t be broken by a disagreement or some petty bickering. We don’t take our relationship for granted because we know how quickly everything can change. How in an instant, one of us could be all that is left. And then there would only be one.

So when we have the chance to spend a weekend giggling, indulging and spending some quality time together, when we have the time to just hang around and enjoy each others company — I can’t help but think that my dad would recognize what a gift that is. And since it’s his birthday, I think it’s even all the more appropriate.