10.07.04
2:12 p.m.
bereft
I had lunch with my father yesterday. It’s a ritual we do once a month or so. I imagined when I grew older I would be able to go back to my parent’s house and feel comforted...comfortable. Talk with them; spend time together. Instead, I’m penciled in for a lunch date, and we talk – shallowly – about our lives for an hour, then we’re off in our separate directions again.We used to be so close; I used to tell him everything. We could sit on the couch and watch a football game; or go to the lake, go camping, or to amusement parks...wherever, and we’d enjoy each other’s company. We’d laugh, we’d smile, we’d joke. Now, I feel as if I’m having lunch with a business partner. It’s...sterilized.
There’s an uneasiness about the whole situation. I want so much to tell him things, share my life in a deeper sense than just “School’s going good” and “Did you see the game last weekend?” But I censor myself.
He’s changed. I’ve changed.
I miss the old us.
He told me that my grandmother is dying of leukemia; so nonchalantly, no show of emotion. The same way he told me when he had colon cancer; just matter-of-factly.
I haven’t seen my grandmother in over fifteen years. She lives in Germany and I’ve yet to have the disposable income to just jet across the Atlantic. I know if I ever did, I’d have the same uneasy feeling I’m beginning to experience around my father.
I feel bereft. My incoherent thoughts can’t express the loss. Not for my grandmother, but for the relationship with my father.
I don’t want it to continue like this, yet I know no way of fixing it.
