Any Day Now

This time of year is the anniversary of my father’s death. When my father passed away, I felt a lot different about it than I thought I would. I imagined myself not caring at all, feeling free from the guilt I felt to talk, text, or help him. For over two decades after he was released from prison, a year didn’t go by that he wouldn’t hit me up for money or some other favor. Whenever I went home, I always felt that I should visit him even though I knew it would be difficult, time consuming, and leave me feeling drained. 

With him gone, I would be free of all of this. Yet I oddly felt sadness. I’m not sure why. He wasn’t a good father. I spent most of my childhood scared of him and my adulthood trying to escape my past. His passing would let me have closure. I was sure of it. Then it happened very suddenly and I had many emotions - relief, liberation, unburdened  - and sadness. This really took me by surprise as it’s the last emotion I expected to feel. 

Why I felt this way is something I’m still working through. But this time of year always reminds me of how afraid my father was of death. Or at least how afraid of it he claimed to be. When I was 9 years old talking to him through the early morning hours, trying to encourage him that things would be okay, he would always go through a litany of reasons why they wouldn’t be okay. I cannot count the times he claimed his death was imminent. 

When I was young, it was usually due to factors like stress would kill him, or he would end up killing himself even though he didn’t want to, because he was depressed. There were many times he claimed he would kill himself or my mother, and I remember one time when he dragged my mother outside to the forest behind our house with a gun claiming he was going to “kill this witch”. 

Later in life, it was usually down to health reasons. I have never met a bigger hypochondriac. He was certain that he had a myriad of health issues that would kill him. Looking back through old emails, practically every other one has some new reason why he might not make it another six months. This behavior was exhausting. He cried wolf for over 20 years before it finally happened to him. The older he got the more I felt he might be like one of those people that eats bad, drinks, smokes, is overweight, but lives to 90. Longevity runs in his side of the family, and when he passed away at 70 I was surprised because I imagined him at least making it to 80.

The more I learned about the circumstances of his death, the more I realized that actually it was surprising that he didn’t die sooner. For someone who always claimed to be afraid of dying, he didn’t take care of himself. He never exercised. He ate terribly and always tried to take shortcuts like surgery to lose weight. Later in life he started smoking and he was addicted to pain killers for at least 40 years, and to cocaine for probably a lot longer than me and my siblings realized. 

I think death scares us all, at least a little. If not for what comes after, then the pain that we may experience during death. We can tell ourselves it doesn’t, but I personally don’t believe anyone can have zero fear of death. This fear is what has kept our species alive for so long. 

My father probably was afraid of death, but I don’t think any more so than most. He used this claimed fear and constant imminent danger to make you feel bad and to get something from you. 

“Oh, you’re coming back home this summer? The doctor told me I’ll be lucky to make it another six months. How could you even not think of visiting me? I also really want to take this trip and finish this project I’m working on, so can I have some money? I’ll be gone soon and won’t bother you anymore!”

This is the kind of thing he would say all the time, and guilt you into doing things for him. But in the end, for all those decades, he was fine and was just using your empathy and an entire life of making you feel guilty to get what he wanted. If he just would have been able to function as a normal, kind, caring person he wouldn’t have had to use these constant threats to get what he wanted. He had mental illness that caused this, but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with him.

In the end, he didn’t have much wrong with him. A few months before he died he claimed he had cancerous tumors that were killing him, but the autopsy showed no cancer, just some kidney problems and atherosclerosis. Neither of which actually killed him. 

When I was a kid, hearing the incessant musings of his pending demise was difficult and traumatizing. It was an annoyance as an adult, but always brought back painful memories. Although I felt unexpectedly sad about his death, it’s nice to be free of the constant attempts at manipulation.