The Anniversary
I was lying in bed the other night, watching To Kill a Mockingbird, weeping throughout. I remember when I first read the book, in 6th or 7th grade, I found a tattered copy of it somewhere and bored, started reading. I devoured it, and totally related to the father/daughter relationship between Atticus and Scout; her acting out, him gently correcting the behavior, yet secretly taking delight in her rebellious nature and thoughtful comments that only a child can say to an adult to make them understand the folly of their ways.
Okay, so my father wasn’t gentle.
His favorite way of starting any sentance was:
What kind of idiot does ______________ (insert whatever I had just done).
But the basic underlying priciple was the same. My father scolded me when he thought I had over stepped or under achieved, but was completely delighted when I attempted shortcuts, talked my way out of trouble or proved I could do something nobody thought possible. He was my Atticus, if Atticus Finch had been a gangster. But as they say, there is honor among theives, and my father had a very specific code and way he lived his life, which apart from the law breaking was as unflappable as Atticus’ belief in truth, justice and the American Way. It also helped that my father looked a bit like Gregory Peck’s version of the character, down to the extra large eyebrows, the hair and the dorky glasses, but you be the judge.
This week marks the anniversary of his death, or his yahrzeit (the death date according to the Hebrew calendar). It has been eight years this week since he moved on to the great racetrack in the sky, where the longshot always comes in if it matches the back off (WYKYN) and all the Cola is served with no ice, because that’s how they “get you.”
When he died, my life was chaos. I had just separated from my husband of twenty years, I had no idea how to separate from him or what to do about the kids. Our lives were so enmeshed and intertwined, much more so than the average couple for a variety of reasons. My father, who claimed to be organized in these kinds of matters was much less organized than he believed himself to be. I took me a year to piece together what was where and how many bank accounts in two states existed. I also to this day, am in posession of safe deposit box keys that have no supporting documentaion or paper trails, so God only knows what is where. Some day, when alien life finds the ruin of our human experiment, confused beings for other worlds will peruse through the museum of mankind and wonder what the hell those metal boxes filled with junk were used for. It also didn’t help that the woman he lived with for 20 years stole all his possesssions and sued me multiple times for even more money than she received (the lion’s share of his estate) and my grandmother’s prized possessions., This in addition to her grandchildren and daughter’s share, who were added to his will two months before he died when the cancer had begun to migrate to his brain. There was no time to mourn, mainly because I was dealing with all of that folderol while being on an international flight at least once a month as the Vice President of the largest musuem in Israel.
Once the shock of his death had worn off, I was to furious with him and at the mess I felt he left for me, to actually mourn his death in a meaningful way. It is only in the last year or two that I’ve been able to sit in the quiet of it, and think about how much I miss him and the lessons that I learned from him. I wrote a book, currently on submission, about his life, which I have to say, for lack of a better word, was unique.
I’ve come to realize the real anniversary I’m comemmorating this week: not the date on the death certificate, but the moment my heart has finally caught up to what my life already survived. The moment when the noise quieted, the lawsuits stopped, the kids grew up and are flying away to college, the job changed, and I can finally sit still long enough to feel the absence instead of outrun it.
Grief is rude. It doesn’t arrive when the casseroles and cakes do. It shows up years later, barefoot, uninvited, tracking sand into the bed, asking if you remember the sound of his laugh.
And I do. I remember more now than I could then. Not because the mess is gone — some of it is still in those mystery safe‑deposit boxes, probably next to a cursed stamp and a receipt from 1977 — but because I’m no longer furious. Or at least, not only furious. His laugh was what I remember most. It was booming and loud and could be heard from driveway with the windows rolled up and the front door was closed.
There’s room now for the missing.
So this year, instead of marking the day he died, I’m marking the day I finally let myself mourn him. The day I stopped being the executor, the daughter-who-had-to-hold-it-together, the woman cleaning up after everyone else’s decisions — and just became a person who loved her father, and lost him.
It’s late. But it’s mine. And as I wrote many times in my book, My Year of Really Bad Dates for today, maybe that’s enough.
