Dad

On some Sunday mornings, I wake up and swear I can smell the onions and garlic sautéing in the olive oil.  On those mornings, I spend a few extra minutes in bed and think about the first memory I have of cooking the sauce.  My dad cut up the onions for me and taught me how to chop the garlic and how much olive oil to pour into the pan.  He stood beside me as I grabbed a handful of the chopped onions and dropped them into the hot oil, scooped up the garlic and brushed it off my fingers into the onions, and then stirred the pot with a wooden spoon. 

“That’s it. Stir ‘em up until the onions become clear.”

That first time, I made the whole meal with him.  Cutting the onions into rings for the salad, saying “I like the onions round.”

Him laughing and saying “I’ve never seen a square one.”

I made the meatballs, and watched them cook.

When they were done, he handed me a bowl with two of them in it, covered in the sauce.

“You have to try them, so you know what you’re serving.”

I buttered the bread, and shook out the garlic salt on it, put it in the oven, watched it bake.  We set the table together, and then called everyone to eat.

It was a good day, and it’s a very vivid memory.

These are the kinds of memories I like to visit when I start missing him.  I don’t like to think about how he died, or that he left us all so suddenly.  I don’t like to think about any of that because I did that for many years, and it doesn’t relieve any of the pain, or answer any of the questions.  Thinking about why and how and when only emphasizes the pain.  And he never wanted that for any of his children when he was alive, so I don’t want to do it when he is dead.

When he was alive, he was warm and funny, biting and stern, dancing like a chicken or singing like Sinatra.  When he was alive, he called me all the time, and wrote me letters. He even sent me an email once.  I think it was his first and only email.

Every time I came home, he would tell me the same joke:  Two women are on a boat and they want to get their picture taken.  They ask a man to take the picture.  He picks up the camera and points it toward them, but it takes a while, and the one woman asks the other woman, “What’s he doing?”  And the woman answers, “He’s going to focus.” And the first woman asks, “Both of us?”

A couple weeks ago, I had a dream about him.  In the dream, we were laughing and hugging and smiling and talking.  In the moment before waking fully, I thought “What a great dream.  I have to call dad and tell him.”  And I was so excited to tell him, and I was smiling.  Then I remembered I couldn’t call him.  The realization of it sent a wave of sorrow.  I cried instantly. It happened to be a Sunday morning.  So I got up and started chopping the onions. . .

It’s been eight years since he died.  Eight years too many. . .