I submit
I “missed” Father’s Day last Sunday, in that I didn’t realize it was occurring, so it was a bit jarring when friends started sending me texts asking if I was okay.
(I am.)
My father died in 2019, which feels like so long ago and also so very not long ago. The grief comes in flares now, unlike the great rolling waves of bricks that used to grind me to dust.
And yet, as with anything, as soon as we stop to notice, we begin to feel it more fully. Writing about my dad makes me cry about my dad.
Perhaps that’s why we stop noticing. Perhaps it’s easier most days to live with a subdued awareness. Otherwise, how would we go on?
As Sarah Manguso wrote in Ongoingness: The End of a Diary:
“Today was very full, but the problem isn't today. It's tomorrow. I'd be able to recover from today if it weren't for tomorrow. There should be extra days, buffer days, between real days.”
While I recover from a day that’s already a week behind us, here’s one of my favorite memories of my father:
My first book — The…