I’m drained. It’s much easier to think you’re tough before the thing happens. Afterwards, you realize all the things that are undone and all the things that can never be done.
I never got married. The past few weddings I went to, the part where I cried the most was when the father and daughter danced. My Dad will not be able to ever give me away. It would have been hard to find a man that would please him for me as a husband anyway, I’m sure. He and I are much the same.
I wish I had sat down with him, years ago, and written down all the stuff he had to say about his life and about our family. I remember he would offer little stories here and there, about heritage going to the Medici family, about my Nono and his cliff diving, about my Dad’s experience in Mexico that nearly killed him, and I can’t recall the details now. I only recall that he told me things. I have fragments. The details are a blur and I don’t like trying to fill in the blanks. I have incomplete data. I will never know now.
My brother said that it’s not just the end of Dad, too, it’s also the end of an era. It’s the end of Sarasota. Sure, I will go back there, but it doesn’t matter as much anymore.
Dad didn’t want to be buried and he didn’t want a funeral. His company, Mosby Engineering, did a lot of work in Sarasota, planning subdivisions and I think also some roads. I don’t know what all they did; I wish I knew. He eventually sold the company, when I was in high school or just afterwards, so there is nobody I can ask anymore about all of his accomplishments with that. I feel like he should be remembered somehow. I would like to be able to go someplace special to remember him. But, I guess he didn’t want that. He was not a social person. I understand that. I’m not sure if I would want a funeral either. I’m afraid nobody would care. I’ve always been, or felt, very alone. I wonder if that is why he didn’t want one. I guess I have the beach to go visit him. He used to take me to the beach when I was a child. The beach will be our place. Siesta Key beach. It will be where I can visit him.
I will add to what my brother said in that the end of Dad is, for me, the end of my perception of family. Even though my Dad left when I was 1, he has always been what felt like family to me. He was my refuge. When I went to visit him I would be able to sit at a table to eat. That may sound like something not so special, but if you grew up the way I grew up, you would understand how special it was. He was the only experience of that in my entire childhood that I had. Only when I went to visit him at his home did I ever get to sleep in a bed. The rest of my childhood and adolescence I did not have that. I slept in a crib until 7 years old or more (not sure exactly when the transition to sofa bed occurred but I know it was after my grandma died so I was at least 7), then I slept in a sofa bed, then on a sofa that I couldn’t pull out into a bed anymore because there was no space for that, then in a recliner chair, and finally, when I was a senior in high school, finally a twin mattress on the floor in the “living room” (if you can call it that – it wasn’t a living room at all in the condo of a hoarder). I didn’t have a family experience at all at home, but family felt real, it felt like I had a real family, when I went to visit my Dad; it felt like what it was supposed to be, even though I didn’t have my Mom there. My stepmom was there in that role as a placeholder when I went to visit Dad. Even though she and I had our ups and downs, it completed the picture in a way. I almost felt normal, because of my Dad. He was the image of family. Of course I love my Mom and my brother, but we never had the actual family experience. My Mom and my brother were like friends, when we weren’t fighting. My Dad is what made me feel like I had a family. He was the part of me, the only part of my life, that made me normal.
He loved me so much. I only saw him cry a couple times in my life, and they were both because of me. He worried so much about me. He wanted to protect me from everything. He rescued me from dangerous relationships. He drove up to Atlanta with my Uncle to move me out of an aparment from a guy that I needed to get away from. He brought me back down to Florida and got me enrolled in College and got me into an apartment. A decade or so later again his love pulled me out from my self-destruction. He saved me from the lowest of lows, from what would have surely been the point of no return. It’s really a miracle that only he could have pulled off. Honestly, he is the only reason I am still alive. “Love is stronger than fear, every time.” This brought a tear to his eye when I said it. I can’t remember what made me say it, but I know for sure that I was in a dark place at the time and I also know that he knew that. He always seemed to know everything. He sometimes wouldn’t let me know that he knew, because then we’d have to deal with it, but he knew. I wonder what all he actually knew for sure. Nobody knows now.
I’m glad I was finally able to get my career back on track at least before his physical body left this Earth. I know he worried about that a lot. At least I could give him that, even though I couldn’t give him the comfort in knowing that I had a husband and a family of my own. Those are the two things he would always mention, this past decade. At least I could give him one of them.
I know he will visit me in my dreams. I hope so at least. I have very vivid, lucid, and premonitory dreams and have for my entire life. Dreams are all I really feel like I have anymore.
I miss you, Dad. I miss you already. I want to go down there and be with you for Thanksgiving and Christmas. I want you to meet a boyfriend that I will have someday and tell me that you are happy for me. I want you to be standing at the altar to give me away and I want to see you smile with a tear in your eye when I finally get married. I want you back. I didn’t have you enough in my life. What about all the time that we missed?
I can’t do this anymore right now. I love you, Daddy. Come see me in my dreams, please.
the space between the notes 