And a Year Goes By

Tomorrow will mark the 1 year anniversary of my father's death. Everything that happened after was very, very hard, but I survived. I made it through.





I hate the above song. I hate it because my dad played it over and over while my parents were splitting up. But on the other hand, it's a song that makes me think of my dad. Which made it wicked strange when my dad's sister started posting the lyrics to it on facebook on the day that my grandma, my dad's mom, died, a couple of months ago. But somehow, as much as I hate it, (and Night Moves is so a better song) I'm thinking of it today.

But there are other songs that make me think of my dad, too.

Let's post some videos that are Crazy's greatest hits with her dad, shall we?



I will never forget my dad moving me home from college one year, and the two of us singing along to this on the radio, with me doing the lyrics and him doing the "hoo!hoo!s" My dad totally rocked.

My dad also totally loved some Hall and Oates. When he would drive me to ice skating when I was a kid, in his rusted out jeep, we would listen to Hall and Oats on his tape player and he would let me do the stick shift as we drove. Sure, I was like 8 years old, and probably shouldn't have been shifting. But it was awesome. And this song, well, it included the word "bitch" which seemed very naughty, but my dad didn't freak out if I sang it, and that made him WAY cooler than most adults.



And you know probably something that makes me Crazy? This most awesome song by Heart, another of the "driving in the car with my dad" greatest hits:



And finally, the blues. My dad loved the blues, and introduced me to B.B. King, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, and Buddy Guy, among many others. But just after I'd gotten my wisdom teeth out, he took me to see B.B. King and Buddy Guy in concert, and, because he was nothing if not a pretty crappy traditional father, he encouraged me to drink beers while on the pain meds, for it would be "more fun." Again, he made very bad choices as a father, but at 19, that kind of a father is really pretty awesome. So Buddy Guy:



Tonight, I read the posts that I wrote last year surrounding his death, and the comments. I want to say thank you again to all of you who commented last year. That support meant so much to me then, and it still means so much now.

My father's sons, my half-brothers, and I are facebook friends. We keep in touch, as much as I think anybody can keep in touch with teenage boys. I sent them a message before starting this post, just telling them that I love them, telling them that I hope they're ok, telling them how proud my father was of them.

This past week has been hard for me. I still don't know what happened to my father's ashes, and I still feel a lot of anger, not only about my father and his choices but also about the choices that most of his family made when he died. I still feel completely in disbelief that my father, who would be only 56 if he were alive, is dead. I'm still sad, both for what I've lost and for what I never had while he was alive.

But I'm still here. And I'm ok. I've found a way to ok after the devastation of last year. But yeah, so my dad is dead. And it's sad. But I'm here, and I'm good. Really good.