We’d sing and laugh and talk, but we would love to sing. For years we would drive from Fresno, California to Salinas to visit our mom, and she would be in the passenger seat. When you need directions then I'll be the guide When you feel embarrassed then I'll be your pride To tell the difference between shooting stars and satellites Someday, you'll have to check your own oil and tranny fluid.įrom the passenger seat as you are driving me home Please cherish your parents while they're around. He'd slip me a 20 to get back to Richmond, and he would say "I love ya, son." We'd hug, and he would check my oil and tranny fluid. But I bet he would end the visit by telling me how proud of me he is. He would probably give me Hell over dressing well and speaking a bit more properly and never coming down to see my mother, because it seems people never understand how busy you are and how you have absolutely no time to do anything except study, work, and sleep. I bet Dad would have some interesting things to say to me these days. I can't imagine going down for the weekend to visit Mom and Dad at home. Honestly, I don't remember how life felt with Dad around. January 4th will make three years since that night. I wouldn't be here today without this album. They were the only CDs I could listen to. All I remember is that I listened to Transatlanticism and Plans on repeat. To be honest, life was a blur until high school graduation at the end of May.
I don't remember grieving over his passing. I wasn't crying, but I felt each spasm that crying gives as I gasped for the strength to sing the words. Throughout this process, I sat cold and alone in Mom's old Jeep Liberty with the headlights on and Transatlanticism in the CD player. I was the one who drove up the hill waiting for the funeral directors so I could flag them down to pick him up. I was the one who called the funeral home. I was the one who called and told my brother and best friend. I kissed his forehead, told him how much I loved him and would miss him, and I left the room. I know that's really creepy to talk about, but it felt really important then. His body would periodically breathe, and it would be as though he were still there.
Death is really creepy certain bodily functions still carry on for an hour or so after. I told him how much I would miss him as he lay there. I locked myself in the room with him for a few minutes after for some final alone time. All that was left was the body that he used to wrestle with me when I was younger and naive.
The man who gave me my hairline, my nose, my height, and half of my eye color was gone. Teenage life made me grow to talk back to him every morning. He was the man who drove me to school every day. There was the man who built the home I lived in. There was the man who had driven me around Corbin when Mom was angry. I knew he was supposed to be gone Mom and I had told him the night before that he could let go. I rushed into the bedroom, hoping it wasn't true. I ran through the house to find mom hysterically crying on the couch as forty years crashed down around her and she was left alone. Dad's hospice nurse told me that he had passed on. All the sudden, I got the knock on the door. I remember locking myself in my room the last few hours before he passed, listening to "Fire Island" by Fountains of Wayne on repeat and trying to pretend that everything was okay for a while. This was the first song I listened to after Dad died.
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