The year after the death of a loved one is a year of firsts.
The first of your birthdays without them, the first of theirs; the first winter holiday, the first new year. My father died on November 30, 2015, so we experienced these firsts in rapid succession: my birthday on December 6, his funeral on December 7, he and my mother’s anniversary on December 9, Christmas, my sister’s birthday on December 31. After 2016 began, the big firsts were over.
I did not experience denial, one of the five stages of grief, the way one sees it in films. “He can’t be,” “no, you’re lying” and variations thereof did not come to mind. We were in the room when he died, and I could not deny that. Instead, I would see a that an old B-rated science fiction movie finally made it to Netflix, and reach for my phone to text him the title. My mother uses his phone (she has not gotten rid of the number yet) to text me when hers is out of battery power, but “iMessage from Dad” is less jarring now that I am accustomed to it.
Until I saw a Father’s Day card display in Target in mid-May, I forgot about the firsts. I sped past the cards to the home goods section to get plastic Sterilite containers. Instead of wheeling my cart past the cards again, I took the long way back to the front through clothing and jewelry. I waited in the line closest to the doors, because that register was furthest from the card display.
Because the winter holiday hype was in full force when my father died, I did not experience those firsts in the wearisome, dragging way I have this first Father’s Day. The firsts of December were completed in swift succession; this first Father’s Day has been sluggish but sharp. The card display in Target has been beefed up with Father’s Day gift ideas. The promotion teams of Amazon, National Geographic, Paper Source, and Cook’s Illustrated have sent Father’s Day specials to my email inbox. I wonder how many others have pondered why there’s no “My father’s dead, please exclude me from related promotional materials” box to check in our profiles on these sites. I wonder how many people needed a similar box for Mother’s Day.
My local bookstore has a “Books for Dad!” display. I gave him One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest for his last birthday, on October 17. I purchased Wind, Sand and Stars by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, with the intent on giving it to him for Christmas. The bookmark he left a quarter way through One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is still there, and I regret my choice to save Wind, Sand and Stars for Christmas; my father was a pilot like Saint-Exupéry, and it would have been more cheerful. Both books I purchased at this store.
I went to Macy’s to purchase a strapless bra for a wedding. The lingerie section was free of Father’s Day specials, but the checkout lane was not: a flyer was opened to an advertisement for a special on watches. I thought of my father’s Seiko, with its round face and large band. In July, he picked out at the Macy’s counter to buy me for my birthday in December: thin, gold and silver, with a rectangular black face. He wanted me to have a sleek Grown Up Watch for my Grown Up Job. I purchased it myself a couple days before my birthday, and have worn it almost daily until this month.
Initially, I began this thinking I would use the opportunity to critique the commercialization of family holidays; but really, these promotion teams are doing their jobs, not trying to make me feel badly. I could end this with a suggestion to visit or call your own father, but I'm not privy to your relationship with him. You could be reading this because it's your first, or fifteenth, Father's Day without your father.
As of this writing, tomorrow is Father’s Day. And I end this piece with uncertainty. I don’t know how I will feel, or if I will visit his grave, or his favorite restaurant.
But I do know I will wear my watch.
