In case you were wondering

October is a shit month.  I used to love it.  I like autumn and Halloween, I even like the cooler weather and the chance to wear sweaters.

But this October already feels like a minefield of memories from October two years ago when I spent a month back home while my dad was in the hospital.  I think a lot about how sad and angry I am that Max will never know his Grandpa. 

I think about the day I forgot which word to use for elevator/lift. I think about the day I flew back from Michigan and crying in the airport and trying not to cry at the office.  I think about going back to work in mid-November and the endless walks around the block I took, often without a coat on to try to physically cool down and keep myself from losing my cool at my desk.  I think about the day I came home early at the start of my second week back to work after he died and how I lay in bed with the cat and watched the snow fall outside. 

And I think about the stories I have to tell Max so he can know where he comes from and I wonder if they’ll ever be enough.  And I think about the night I woke up with the phone ringing and Mom telling me they were putting him on a ventilator and now I think, ‘That was the start of the end.’ But I didn’t know that then.  It all feels like a cheat and it all feels unfair, and it is unfair but my dad would have been the first in line to tell me that no one said life was fair, and then he would have played the world’s smallest violin for me and I would have rolled me eyes and called him an old man and then we would have shared a beer.

And, yeah, I miss him.  It sucks.