Here lies George...

Yesterday would have been my daddy's 81st birthday. On that same token, Tuesday marks the 11 year anniversary of his death. Kind of sureal... celebrating your birthday one day and then three days later mourning your passing. And everytime I think about it, I realize, my family history is almost gone. I don't have any living grandparents and only one parent. My son will spend most of his life walking in those same shoes. He has both parents and sets of grandparents but only one half of the equation is functional.

Usually I don't think a lot about my dad. A lot of times when I do think of him it's because Toby has done something that so reminds me of his weird sense of humor, or when I marvel at how much my dad would have liked him and how very much Toby would have loved and adored him. But then every year these two days roll along. And those days I think about when he was dead and I was staring at him lying on the bed with the 911 operator in my ear telling me to do CPR and my refusal to do it... because he was so obviously gone... but also because his dentures weren't in and I knew you have to get a good seal to do it successfully. Then right after that I remember my aunt and I planning a great way to cash in on the accidental death clause that had changed on his 70th birthday, just three days before... throw him down the steps and then it looks like he fell down when he had the heart attack. And I remember my mom calling us sick and morbid.

Then I remember all those years later when I was living in Melvin's grandma's house and I had just gotten home and I had a breakdown in my car in the driveway, just crying and keening for over an hour. I never had taken the time to cry before then. All I know was I heard this Reba song and the next thing I knew, the tears were just flowing. If anyone had ever seen me that night they probably would have thought I had gone totally insane.

I remember the silly things like the stinky stained pillow he laid his head on every night while he watched the news, loudly. The way he sat in the chair staring down between his feet, the vericose veins on his legs and his hammer toes. The government pens and the ugly VA plastic glasses. But I mostly just remember that he was my daddy and he's gone. And I miss him... a whole lot today