31 Years ago Today

July 16, 1981

My brother and I were up at the crack of noon, like usual. He was seventeen, I was fifteen. My nineteen year old sister had just left for her job at Dairy Queen, and Hank and I figured we'd go to the pool, then go see Ursula and get some ice cream and piss her off because we got to go to the pool and she didn't. Pretty typical summer day.

At two o clock, everything went to hell.

Mom came to the pool in a panic, screaming that Dad had been in an accident and was at the hospital.

He was dead on arrival.

The guy driving the pickup truck was going close to 100 miles an hour. He was on the wrong side of the road to pass the car in front of him. Turned out that he'd been drinking and tooting up. He went to jail for 13 years. I try not to even think about him. I don't know where he is and I don't want to know. It wouldn't help me to know.

Dad was riding his motorcycle. He was wearing his helmet. But when you get clipped by a vehicle going that fast, it doesn't help.

I always thought about how Dad's death didn't make much difference in the scheme of things. He was just another blue collar worker, a forklift operator. He never went to college. He and Mom had my sister right out of high school. They were only 18 years old, twenty when my brother came along, and then 22 when I arrived. We lived in a little suburban house that my parents did their best to make nice. We were nobody, but when that one average Joe died, the world went to hell for four people.

Hank tried to suck it up and be the man of the house. I resented him telling me what to do. Ursula had already been bossy, but now my best buddy was trying to act like my father. I did my damndest to let him know that he wasn't. 

I became a handful, and I feel bad about it now. I started cutting myself. My mom, brother and sister didn't understand. They didn't handle it very well, but back then people weren't given a lot of guidance. Things are getting better, but there's still a long way to go.

I will never forget the way I felt on that day. The world stood still and I wished the everything would just be erased, because I didn't want anything to exist if my dad was gone.

It was like standing in the middle of a tornado and just wanting to yell "stop!"

But it didn't stop.

I did a lot of drugs and drank a lot to try and get it to stop. It would slow down for a while. But partying isn't going to take away the pain. It just numbs it for a time.

It took me a long time to get my shit together. I'm still flying by the seat of my pants a lot of the time, but at least I have some kind of an idea.

My dad never made it to 40. I'm almost ten years older than he was when he was taken.

That's kind of a weird thought.

I've come to terms with what happened as best I can. This morning I had the thought that Dad is just chilling in Heaven waiting for the rest of us. He's playing a few hands of poker and drinking some beers with the other angels. That's the kind of guy he was. That would be his kind of Heaven.

I'll be seeing you again, Dad. I know I will.