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.
