The First Year

On the way home from work, I stopped at the Hallmark store in the strip mall. I headed straight for the fag section, because it was Cole's birthday. There's not really a fag section, of course, but there should be. I have often fantasized about all the cards I would make for my own card store. My Fag Section would be chockablock with glittery stereotypes and sassy, inappropriate one-liners. I would never want to leave that section. Other sections would include Celebration: "Congratulations on your raise! Maybe now you'll have money for orthodontia." And Relationships: "I hear you broke up - Good. He was an asshole." And the ever-popular Encouragement Section: "You are beautiful - I don't care what your mother says."  The card I chose for Cole was just the right blend of erectile dysfunction and bowel movement humor. Patricia shares Cole's birthday, so for her I selected a greeting that referenced a vibrating bicycle seat. Perfection times two.

Feeling pleased with myself and smug with my purchases, I exited the store. Someone in the distance was ringing a bell for Salvation Army. But what to my wondering eyes did appear? I stopped in my tracks. Feelings of loss and grief passed through me and took my breath away. It was Hickory Farms. The Hickory Farms store appears in the strip mall for two months each year, selling meats, sweets, and cheeses for the holidays. I shopped there nearly every year for Dad for Christmas. Dad is dead this Christmas. Dad is dead. For Christmas.

Others have warned me of this - of those moments that pop up from nowhere and overwhelm you. The aftershocks of the death of loved ones. The First Year is the hardest, they say: the first Father's Day, the first birthday, the first Christmas without him. And there I was, frozen by fear and welling up with tears on the sidewalk staring at a display of summer sausage and smoked cheddar.

To go from the joy of tacky greeting cards to complete grief in 15 seconds is hard to handle. A freefall. I hustled to the Honda before the sobbing started. Dad's dead at Christmas. Dad's dead at Christmas. My brain repeated this. I heard his voice. I saw him laughing in his chair by the fireplace. I saw him pull his pocket knife out and cut away the ribbon of a Christmas package - always the pocket knife. Usually I can shut it off, pull a mental switch, shove emotions away when they become inconvenient. But this time I let them go. I hoped nobody was watching, and I let them go. The First Year feels like it will never end.