Unwanted Phone Call

I've spent more of my adult life on the road than at home. There's sometimes a feeling that you are removed from real life, sometimes it's hard to even imagine that full days and nights are passing at home. One after another, over and over. Maybe it's hard to imagine because it's a mainly unpleasant thought, that there is a whole life at home that you are leaving un-lived.

When the phone rings and it's an unexpected call from home, it's kind of a minor shock to the system, and you can't help but think of worst case scenarios for why someone's calling. Trevor and I have talked about this a lot. How the phone not ringing is kind of a good thing, no news is good news. My mom called around 9am this morning, as we were just beginning our drive from Carbondale, CO to Salt Lake City. And it was not good news.

My dad had passed away about an hour earlier. I guess you can't call it unexpected, as my dad had some serious health problems. But it somehow still feels that way. It's too much to accept that I'll never see him again. I really don't know how to mourn. I want to let go and just, you know, scream or beat up a wall or something. But besides the fact that might get me arrested here at the SLC airport, I don't think I could let myself go that far anyway. Every time I feel the emotion surging, I instinctively push it back down. I can't imagine it's healthy, but I can't imagine enduring the emotion unfettered.

So I just don't know what to do. I just gotta get home and hug my wife and kid, and my mom and my siblings. But honestly, I'm really scared of that too. Cause it's gonna be harder to tamper my emotions around my loved ones, and around people who are feeling the same pain. These next days are gonna hurt.

My dad wasn't a real talker, but I never doubted he was there for me. Not once, ever. Even in my rebellious teenage years, when we argued, I could push things because I knew I could never endanger the love and support I got from him. I remember, almost 20 years ago, my mom was really sick and it was touch and go whether she'd make it. And I was walking somewhere with my dad and I said something about how screwed we were going to be if mom died, how much our family needed her. And of course he agreed with that, but then he did something quite out of character for him, and he held my hand, and he said, "But you'll still have me."

Promise, dad?