Going Home...Again

This one is not musical.  I suspect I've been avoiding the non-musical things a bit lately.  But tomorrow I head back, for a few days, to meet up with my brothers and go through Dad's house.

Weird.  At one time it was my house too.  I was all our house.  I can recall vividly the desire to move out.  The desire to have my own home.  Yet lately I find myself comforted greatly at the realization that Dad never made the distinction.

I know that's all beyond common.  Kids want to move on eventually.  Have their own sense of self - their own space.  It's completely normal.

But I miss Dad.  I miss what I have come to realize is my friend.  How did that happen?  At what point did my dad, of all people, become my friend?  Once of my dearest friends.  How did that transition happen, especially given how messed up our relationship was for so long?  And then of course, why does any of that past matter?  The last 15 years or so were joyous.  Precious.  Limitless.

I miss my mom too.  But it's different.  I carry a lot still when I think of her.  A lot of guilt and shame and regret - mostly because I also carry her love.  But that is another story.

The last couple of months I also find myself angry.  I can accept that Dad is gone.  But I am at times angry about it.  I felt cheated when we lost mom.  But in retrospect, more so because I feel she got cheated.  Unlike Dad, she, among other things, never got to meet all the grand kids.  Selfishly, I'll admit, she did not get to see my get my life together in a real and meaningful way.  Michele, Gray, Tanner.  All of it. Of course then the notion of her looking down on me and so on...but back to going home....

I guess with Dad I'm just feeling like I understood the balance of things finally. The habits of our relationship made sense, and I miss it.  I miss the absurd conversations about why the TV wasn't working.  Or how much the cost of an item in the Arizona grocery differed from the Ohio grocery.  Or the simple ease of a phone call while I'm stuck in traffic to pass the time.

I am not sure how I feel about the impeding sense of permanence of going through the house as the reality of the house moving on to another person.  Another family.  Another life.

But why shouldn't it? I've done the same with countless instruments in the past.  It's meant to be played, not left to hang on a wall or live in case.  Is a living space any different?

I don't know.  Maybe it's ok not to know.  Maybe I don't want to know.  Maybe I am not meant to know.  I just know that Dad was a really good guy.  In the end he was still taking care of me.  Even when he surely deserved to be taken care of himself.  I tell myself it was a comfort to him to know it would be a comfort to me, but even that in the end doesn't seem to offset my continuing anger over his being gone.  It's selfish.  But in an effort to be more open, as I'm mentioned a while ago, it's wonderfully cathartic to confess all this.

I wonder if my journey tomorrow will cast any real light.  Maybe this all just the process. Maybe it just is what it is.  Kinda wishing I could call Dad and talk about it.