“It only hurts when I touch it.” My kids say that all the time, while sporting the latest scrape, bruise, or scratched-into-oblivion bug bite. I always wonder why they just don’t touch it!
And it’s the same with me tonight. I’m enjoying a family party with the Irish cousins. We don’t get to see them all the time, but they are the sort of people you catch right up with as though you’ve never left. It’s the kind of party where all the kids play in the basement and resurface only to replenish their sugar supply and the grown-ups sit around a big table drinking and telling tales. Fun for everybody.
The patriarch Kevin sits surrounded by his children, cousins and older grandchildren. We are all trying to stay out of the rain. My daughter emerges from the basement and bounds over, happily oblivious to my presence at the table. She stops short of Kevin, with the shy face I know means she knows what she wants but not quite how to go about it. Then she silently climbs onto his lap with a grin.
And in that quick instant my breath stops. He looks so frail under the weight of her braided pigtails. And she looks so serene on his lap. And I wish with all my might that it was my dad. And she had a grandpa. And it is a twisting blade, this desire for my dad and his plaid shirt and my smiling daughter on HIS lap.
But it only hurts when I touch it.
1 comment:
Oh, my dear friend.
I don't know the words to say, since I feel your pain but can't truly understand it on that level.
I can say that you do a wonderful job of keeping your dad alive for your children in your stories and the living of your life. But that's not a lap or a hug, I know.
My dad always asked us, when we would come complaining of an injury, "does it hurt when you do this?" And we'd say "Yes!" And he'd say, "Then don't do that!" But I would never tell you to stop doing that, stop probing the wound of his loss -- because that's a way to keep him with you.
And Kennebunkport's favorite, to tell me, was "You'll be better before you're married." I've since learned it actually is a Brazilian saying -- something to the effect of, "when you're married, it will pass." But I also know that life's hurts don't magically go away with true love.
I teach my girls his sayings and ways, knowing that they only get snippets of him, 100 miles away. But I know even that is a treasure. And how I wish you could have your dad still . . .
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