doesn’t matter which

the other day my father called and i didn’t answer. couldn’t. didn’t. doesn’t matter which. that’s how it goes sometimes. i like to call him when i can talk. when i have time, when i feel conversant. all these things on my terms that i will regret when it’s no longer an option to speak with him. but i felt ok, this last time not answering, because we’d been playing phone tag. we’d spoken for a while about family visitors while i was in line at the movies a week or two ago. he told a great joke, and i had to go abruptly. then, a few days later, i’d launched into a long discussion about my new role as a professor, but he was at the barber shop, so he had to go, “johnny’s about to cut my hair. i’ll call you back.” my dad cares about what i do, who i am; it’s nothing personal. so i called him back or he called me back–doesn’t matter which. we talked. first order of business, “i need your zip code number.” i gave it to him. he wrote it down. we talked more about other things. my brother who’s locked up. his son/my nephew, who got a whupping that i wholeheartedly approved of. he’s 13 and was disrespecting his mother. we talked about my mom/my dad’s ex-wife. i didn’t tell him that i found myself disliking her again, for the first time in years. but i told him other things, and i think he knew… so we talked. and we talked. and then, eventually, we hung up. i always feel good after speaking to my dad. he lives hundreds and hundreds of miles south in a little town, and in a little shack. he’s very private, very…

today when i came home, there was a package on the coffee table. the box was hard to open. i should have slowed down to just read the instructions. but i was anxious. cutting and tearing in all the wrong ways. finally. a letter. two insurance policies. instructions for his funeral. i’m 31. i remember being a little girl far too well to handle the gravity of his correspondence. i devour/read the letter, slip out of monday work clothes and into indian summer shorts and flip flops, open the wine i planned to save a few more days, and grab my cell. my daughter and boyfriend, both so observant, eye me as i head to the door. i need the outside though. the air. my phone. one of my homegirls. someone to tell. i am not ready for this. i call d. and she listens. we break it down, and i don’t cry. the half-glass of ice cold white has buffered my nerves as i walk two blocks from obama’s house. warm perfect summer evening. everything is still, manicured lawns, fabulous black gates, neighbors inside, perfect air outside. no drama on this end of the block. all the drama is in me. fast heartbeats, funny-pitched voices, and premonitions of that day…memories hurling through my mind, imagination ran rampant with all he suffers in that little down south shack. i knew when he moved south that he went there to die. to spend his last days. to be with his few remaining family members. to stop having to drive so much. to stop surviving winter. to just ease into his end the same way i like to ease into the mornings…calmly and without pressure to rise… but his instructions, these hand-written words, the same handwriting from 20 years ago… i remember his grocery lists on yellow legal pads on our family’s dinner table in our family’s little home when our family existed as one: frosted flakes, milk, oj, bologna, bread, bananas; i remember the way he made his As, and here was one again, written out as one option for covering his burial expenses. my breathing changed. george just died a month ago. he wasn’t my father, but he was, of sorts. my real one is so far away, my brother’s in jail, and my mother is my father’s ex…and the kind to keep things way too light for me. who understands the gravity of this situation?

and yet i find it funny that there’s nothing new under the sun. parents to be, young people fall in love or something like, get married or not, and have kids with someone. they make babies, they work, they struggle or aspire or ascend or succeed. or don’t. doesn’t matter which. whatever they do, mistakes will be made. kids will find fault. kids will grow up, reflect, look back, appreciate or not. doesn’t matter which. the whole time kids are growing up, parents are (hopefully) realizing all the ways they fucked up, the things they didn’t say, the shit they exposed their kids to, things they never should have done, things they definitely should have done. doesn’t matter which. this is all if they’re lucky. these parents have to die. these kids have to go on. we’re all just little old babies of god or whatever you believe in just trying to get it right. i get so much in theory. on paper. but in reality, it’s hard to breathe sometimes. and i walk with my head held high but my heart somewhere under the city. pain envelops me while i rationally try to move through it. truth is, he is right to have sent the info. especially as head of our non-talking/talking family. i had wondered if he gave my brother, in jail, the information. i wondered because we do not speak directly of such things, but apparently the old man has opened up gratuitously to my brother in his later years. my dad is about 70 years old. he has nothing to lose, but he still protects me from his truths. it’s probably for the best. i speculate. i obsess. doesn’t matter which–i have been anticipating his death since my ex’s father died. why? because for 7 years prior, my daughter’s father regularly, somberly, knowingly said in a voice i will never forget, my father is dying. when e. frank died, it was expected. when e. frank died, i began to scrutinize my own paternal unit. i was already protective of him with his collection of ailments, thinking usually my mother stomped all over him for years and then left him. he is a victim in my dreams. (i asked my boyfriend recently why i dream of my father and george, last month, after george died, as invalids that i carried–george without legs on my back; my dad in a wheelchair, large, paraplegic, and almost childlike…emotional weight. tongue in cheek, he told me it’s because i think i know everything and am responsible for everyone. he finds it amusing that people call me constantly for advice when i am considerably crazy as the day is long. i threw my head back and laughed for the small truths in his jokes. for the small jokes in his truths…doesn’t matter which, i think. i must be doing something right, because my girls always call…) and i do feel a sense of obligation to my father; he was always a good man to me. i cannot say he ever did a wrong by me. there were definitely things i did not agree with, primarily rooting from his passivity, but they pale in comparison to the reality of his permanent absence… naw, i ain’t ready.