Life is cruel. If you
think that that phrase is pessimistic, then you’re probably sheltered. If you think that phrase is an axiom, then
you’re probably a turn off.
Why? Because the
set-backs in life are so true to the core of what life is that, with out them,
life would simply be existence. At the
same time, too many set backs makes life not worth living. Given our incessant need to categorize and
obsess over organization of thought, all of us decide one way or the other on
the nature of life. Life sucks; or life
rocks. Live life or die; live life AND
die.
My father in law died this week. He was a great man. He lived a wonderful life, and was survived
by a polite and sincere wife, my sister-in-law who is at worst, the most aspired
person I know, and my wife, the younger of two, and the star with which my
galaxy revolves.
I’m scared to die. I’m
scared to leave my galaxy wife, and her aspired sister, and her sincere
step-mom, and my dad and Juanita and Brandon,
Heather, Nathan, Lil Heather, Katelyn, Grandma & Nana, and everyone
else. Most fearfully, I am afraid of
leaving my beautiful Zobo. What would
life be for her if I was gone?
No one would play “fast and slow”. No one would put on a “Zoey hat”. No one would “march like a dinosaur.” No one would read about being
“low…low…DOWN.” There would be
absolutely no one to let her lick the aluminum top of a yogurt container or
forgive her for saying, “no, no, no dada!”
No one would love her the way I do.
Well…I think that, though I would like to romanticize my
demise and I think of myself as indispensable, I think that I have come to
terms with the idea that I am not.
Danielle said something the other day, shortly after her
dear dad passed…she said, “I always had this image of him tossing her in the
air, in the Mediterranean, just having fun on the
beach.” It occurred o me that this is
now my job. I am now the
beach-tosser. I am the knee bouncer and
the noogie-giver. I am now the “daddy”
in our family, without repute. I am the
MAN of the family. My father-in-law’s
footsteps are large…and my feet are not even close enough to fill them, but
with effort, and with time, I hope to at least form my feet into the shape of
his. That would be a triumph in and of
itself.
Chatboard (0)