It will be my father's birthday tomorrow. My father would have been 63; the “would have,” of course, points to the fact that he is no longer chillaxing on the couch watching Game Show Network (um, not his best moments, of course), or dreaming about the dreams I could never really understand but thought damn dreamy regardless. Dad died on an average 29th of July, but an average 29th that just so happened to be the date that I turned 29 in July, and so birthdays carry a bit of weight for this half wit, just a wee bit of weight.
“I Can Name that Shamrock in One Note!”“There's this thing that I do.”
They seem to pop out right before the spring: Jerry's Kids, March of Dimes, and shamrocks and February hearts—I am, of course, referring to those paper donation (name) tags that pharmacies and groceries seem to wall paper their windows with at this time of year. Pretty much every chance I get I give that precious buck for a bit of post-it-like props to my pops. I rarely note who gets the spare change; Jerry or Dimes or some Cause or another, the charities blend into one another like the sound of the Salvation Army bell a tollin' our mortality and apathy during the holidays; just like that pointed peal, these donation tags point to us and say, "given". I remember the first time I felt compelled toward one; I'd given before, but when I lost my father, I felt that I had lost so much; the hardest thing in the world is in the recognition of the, hmmn, presence of absence. Death: it’s heavy. When you lose someone who was once both looking glass and world-window, when you are truly present to the fact that their voice--something about the way they called your name, something about the way they named you in voice and in birth—is silenced, well, let's just say that I haven’t quite found a name for that yet.
But I keep trying.
. . .
I sat in the kitchen, fiddling with my recent Walgreen’s purchases of cheap but “in” lipstick colors I’d never wear and the 100 pack of rainbow-colored hair ties I lose in a week, when I decided to tell my boyfriend about the naming ritual: “There’s this thing that I do. . . .”
. . . The first time I signed his name, his full name-- the name that became my father once he died, with that middle initial "D." which stood for David, a secret name I never knew or considered-- it was on one of those shamrock things. I think back now and realize that I had to wait for that initial year to begin to hint of spring before I could perform such an act. It was just some strange compulsion. "Would you like to donate a dollar for the Blaaaah Blah Blah?" she must have asked. I remember taking the Sharpie (oh, I really love that smell, don’t you?) and just Wija-movin’ with the first letter: M. . . and each subsequent letter seemed to write itself. "Manuel D. Alvarez". And since then, it’s been this thing I do. I filled one out today. Spring will be coming soon.
“I’ve Heard it Too Many Times to Ignore it”
And I did, and it will. Walgreens, again, and again, a shamrock. This time, however, I’ve added to the tag: “Happy Birthday!” I remembered not because of the Shamrock, or my mother’s UBER drama of martyrdom stirring in the digital divide of cell phone guilt speak, but it rained this morning, and rained hard. Hard and heavy, the first real sign of the spring to come. Winter wasn’t. It just simply wasn’t with it’s lack-luster cold and re-union tour tired snow, but despite that, the hint and subtext of spring under the steady downpour makes you forget a cheated season and stirs you to move beyond kitchen and blinking cursor. Or, at least it does me.
. . .
“Sometimes, I just want to write him letters, you know? I want to say, hey dad! Look what I’m doin’ of late. Send him letters and address them to. . . well! I don’t know; address them to the effing universe,” I said as I shot my beloved with a fuchsia-colored hair tie.
“There’s no Earthly Way of Knowing”
This past Christmas he gave me a booklet of Bloom County-inspired post-letters (not quite cards, so I’ll call them “post letters” as I don’t have a better name for the things).
“I know how much you loved that strip,” he said as I unwrapped with mouth agape and eye faucets turned to “on”; “I thought you could send them, well, a letter, you know? You always talk about writing letters again.” (insert wistful smile here and forgive my little momentary gush of happy; I can’t help myself; he’s a good one.)
Oh, there’s nothing wrong with a little happy. Yes, I attempt in my pathetic half of a half-wit way to snark our cultural obsession with it’s having and getting, with the fact that wherever you turn there is rendered for our dismay more evidence of just how
sad we must all be, as happiness and its pursuit and capture seem to be hardcover bestselling stock in our days. Yes, I snark that shit for shizz, and I want to snark it good. But in my pursuit of thinkin’ on this pursuit, I’ve come to find something altogether unexpected: a wee bit of happy. Yeah. Go figure. In my desire to “call out” (in other words “snark”) our commodified compulsion to “get happy,” I’ve actually found some. And found it in the corniest way: I’ve found it by giving it up.
“When I was young,” I began this particular kitchen-table confession with even more gravity than usual. It seemed as if I held that mug of milky Sencha as if it were a lectern-prop, and my beloved, who was only then discovering my storied obsession with myself, smiled at me in such new-knowing way that it brought me down gently yet seemed to compel me to “do over”: “When I was a little kid,” I began again, confessing of my notion of the Origin of Roseanne’s List o’ Irrational Fears n’ Things.
I was deathly afraid of balloons. Kids are supposed to like them, right? Kids, balloons, parties. FUN, RIGHT? Wrong. I hated them. Well, maybe not hate, exactly, but I was in complete terror of the things. I don’t know why; I just know that it was terrorizing to see one and death—instant, immediate, bam! death!—to ever per chance happen to hold one on a string. Yeah. Death on a string. Of course, the grim reaper decided to visit me early, and in public, no less. In a mall, no less (how effing Joisey). I was uber young—preschool young. And I don’t remember much: walking in Paramus Park Mall with mom and dad. I loved going to the mall with them. Pork fried rice and a new
Richard Scarry or Barbie? Who wouldn’t love the mall? Anyway, one night we were walking through Paramus Park Mall, and all I remember is this old woman walking toward me with this creeeeepy grin and a big. . . shiny. . . aluminum balloon. I think I knew right then that I was in for it, really. My dad must of sensed something (maybe the nails now firmly dug into the palm of his hand), because he squeezed my hand with a gentle-firm “hush, now” squeeze.
“Oh! I wouldn’t know what to do with it! And I’ve been looking for just the little girl to give it to! I’m so happy I’ve found you!” I think she said something like that. My memory has scripted it to feel that way, anyway. I remember she said something about not knowing what to do with a balloon (she being old) and wanting to give it to a child to take and obviously make use of (she being young). She beamed. She had found her victim. Oh,
joy.
“Dead Girl Walkin’!”
I think my mom was about to deny the gift in her Telenovela fashion (I love that woman) when suddenly, my dad took the balloon, handed it to my paralyzed but free hand, held it there until said hand functioned just enough to accept the "offering", and smiled his amazing all-eyes smile as he thanked her profusely for her kind generosity (and, of course, through left-hand-gentle-squeeze-speak, asked me do the same; oh, the dead speak, apparently, because I did what I was asked, despite the dual death grip dance I was secretly performing). He kept that smile fixed on my face as he lead us toward the exit. Then, far enough away from the Balloon-Bearin’ Bruja, his face seemed changed, set, determined. “Outside,” it read.
I’d like to think I was brave right through and up until the night air refreshed and pacified my flushed, wet face, but I think I wasn’t. I think I moaned, complained, cried, and generally freaked. I’ve always been a Cowardly Lion, you know (remember, folks, Leo here). I’d like to think I was brave, but I don’t think I was. But, hey! maybe I was, actually. Maybe. Because I held onto it, you see? I held it until we got “outside” as his face and pace promised, and I let it go.
It was a Charles Dickens sky that night; I always call that particular type of twilight blue “Dickens” blue for some reason. There was such peace as I watched it. I felt that it was happy then. I felt that it was free, and would see so many things. Lots of good things! And I watched it until I couldn’t see it anymore. We all did. The three of us, hand in hand, must have seemed a strange spectacle of silence and upturned awe to anyone who cared to see. But in my mind, then and now, there was no one else outside that night; just we three mall-weary witnesses, hand in hand, staring up at a balloon that found where it belonged. And I remember that feeling the most: I thought it became real then, became alive when it was up there. It would see so many places from the best place of all: it was home.
“I think that cured my sorry ass of that particular fear,” I finished the story and the cup in one dramatic (and slightly First Generation US Network-Telenovela) gulp.
“Return to Sender”
Some letters, as Bartleby will (or won’t) attest to, never get through. But there was something about the rain today that told me to write, and I send this to recall that my dad taught me something about true happiness that night and many subsequent nights thereafter. True happiness, it seems to me, can only truly happen in patches and moments, in those patches we somehow recall to cultivate, and in the understanding and experience of another’s perspective. It is, perhaps, letting go of yourself just enough to find yourself again on the other end. Because she was happy to have found me, and I was made brave by the steady calm of my father’s helping hand, and the balloon? Well, it most certainly was glad to get to see those many good things to see, as balloons are wont to do on their flight home.
Happy Birthday, Dad.
