Chapter 12

It was cool and wet as I made my way to Dad’s grave. Tree leaves whirled around me as I cut across the dying grass. It felt weird to be here so early in the morning; this visit broke the pattern, but it was the only placed I wanted to be right now.

I thought about this revelation. Though the relationship between my father and I was not distant or estranged, I had always been reserved with him. Perhaps it was my own stubbornness, a reluctance to relinquish the betrayal felt in my childhood. The phone calls were a beginning, a way to bridge an unspoken gap I had created. Even then, I couldn’t be as unguarded as I know my mother, my sister, or my father would have liked.

In reality, my visits to my father’s grave were just like my musings in my journal. Each provided a structured way to revel in introspection, continuing the never ending analysis of myself. My sister was right. I was always inside my head, even when I was talking to a headstone or scrawling inked words on parchment pages.

As I knelt near his headstone, I could almost imagine that deep voice asking me if there was someone new in my life. I smiled a little, trying to imagine the day I would answer something different. But that day was not today.

My Dad could tell by the tone of my voice whether or not something was bothering me. Though I thought I could mask my emotions, I was now starting to realize how transparent I was when it came to expressing how I was feeling at any given moment. Everyone could tell what if I was feeling stressed out, disappointed, unhappy. My sister and mom noticed. Julie and Emily noticed. Hell, Mr. Becker picked up on it like he was reading the headlines off a newspaper.

Like anything else that made me confront how little I was able to control in my life, I was becoming more and more obsessed with ways in which I could contain this problem. I even took to practicing my facial expressions in a mirror…any way to regain the control I thought I once had.

Whenever my dad felt something was bothering me, he’d just wait me out, prodding me to continue talking to him until I got around to the underlying problem. In some weird, unexplainable way, this continued at my visits to his grave. I never felt comfortable leaving until I had gotten certain things off my chest. I knew I was good to go when I no longer felt the pull to stay there, talking to nothing. When things were relatively good, my visits might only be twenty minutes. On this visit, it took twenty minutes to get to a point were I felt like broaching the subject.

“School’s stressing me out more than normal, Dad. I know it, and I am pretty sure mom and sis know it as well. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad if this wasn’t my senior year…

I guess the problem is that…well…I think I might want to try something different…pursue something different. Not that you even knew what I wanted to do originally, Dad. But, for some reason, this new path doesn’t seem like something you’d support. It isn’t a stead-fast course, it doesn’t have a clear direction, a clear set of steps to follow. I know you wouldn’t think highly of that. Hell, I don’t even know if I think highly of that…

Anyways, this might be moot, considering that my current paper wasn’t received that highly by my professor. I guess that is something I just have to work on. I know…don’t get discouraged…use the criticism to do something better than he expects…make sure that you are satisfied. But, Dad, what if I…well…what if I am never satisfied?”

I stopped there for a second, thought about what I had just said. A chill settled over me. Maybe that was it. What if I was never going to be satisfied? What if, no matter what path I took, no matter what decision I settled on, the final result would be discontent? For a moment, I savored the simplicity of it; if I was bound to be discontent, no matter what, then all the various decisions that were crowding me were, essentially, pointless. It made the weight of those decisions seem much less significant. But, who wants to live a life of discontent?

“Well, since I want to believe that, at some point, I want to be satisfied with my life, I guess I have to figure out what makes me satisfied. Dad…that’s become the hardest part about this; I can’t figure out what I’d be happy with. I just don’t know…

Dad…I should have asked you something a long time ago…Did you love what you did? I guess, more importantly, were you happy with the choices you made? I know you felt you should have spent more time with me, but you made sacrifices based on certain things you believed in. You worked the long hours because it helped you create the life you provided us. Is that what, in the end, made you comfortable with the choices you made? Were you satisfied? Were you content?”

It was at that moment, when those last words slipped out of my mouth, that I missed my Dad more then ever. I couldn’t conjure up what he might say, because I didn’t have a clue as to how he might answer, what he might have told me. I couldn’t imagine a response or hear his voice filling my ears. I found myself filled with a gnawing emptiness, starting in my gut and spreading throughout my chest. And there, alone, next to his grave, I sat silent and unmoving; for the first time since he died, I found myself shedding tears for my loss.