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I'm not sure what it is, exactly.
Lately, I've been missing my dad more than ever.
It's not Father's Day. It's not the anniversary of his death. It's not his birthday -- which is next month, by the by, but that's really not the point.
I know there's not an expiration date on grief, but lately, I am like a grief geek. Suddenly, I feel like I just lost him yesterday.
Yeah, I know it's been more than two years since he's been gone, but what can I say? For a while now, I've just been this hot mess who's finding it hard to deal with everyday stressors without a hug from her Daddy.
I'm needing to talk to him. So, in his honor and to hopefully relieve some of my anxiety, I'm going to do just that.
Hey, Pop!
How's it going up there? Is it all puffy clouds and everyone wearing flowy white robes and stuff like that?
I know I talk to you a lot, especially lately, and even though I'm not getting any official response, I honestly feel like you hear me.
Am I going completely cuckoo for Coco Puffs, Pop?
I hope you see me when I go to the cemetery to visit you. Although, I know you were never big on that. In fact, if I recall correctly, you felt that going to a place full of dead people and talking to an engraved slab of marble was, you know, totalmente pazzo.
That's "totally crazy" to the average variety nonItalian bear.
Pop's way of dealing with death was through humor. Any time I'd be crying and emotional that someone passed away, he'd try to make me laugh: "What do you mean he died? Now why would he do that? He never did it before?"
That was Pop. Absolutely irreverent, totally unpolitically correct and brazenly bold in just about every way.
I never knew how much I was going to miss him. I totally underestimated the amount of sadness, loss and plain old gloom -- and how long it would last.
Yes, I knew he was sick. Yes, I saw him growing thinner and weaker. Yes, in the back of my mind, I knew it was coming. But that's the thing about losing someone you love so much -- you're never ready to let go.
If he was here right now, he'd look at me and say, "What in the swell is the matter with you?"
Only instead of swell, he'd use that other word that sounds like swell but really means the eternal place of damnation.
That was Pop.
He'd threaten to kick my backside. And if I didn't buck up, he'd really boot my bottom. Seriously.
I know he wasn't perfect. I know sometimes I thought he was mean and surly and cantankerous.
But I also know I was his "baby girl," and I am absolutely positive that my siblings, my son and his other grandchildren were everything to him.
Except, of course, for that beautiful nurse he married in October 1963. And I know that as much as he needled, teased and gave her a hard time, my mother was, and still is, the love of his life.
So, for no particular reason, I felt the need to give him a shout out today.
I miss you so much, Dad -- and I promise to try to "Mangia!" more, like you always wanted me to.