My First Father’s Day as a Father

Father’s Day has always been the kind of holiday that I considered a hallmark holiday. IE, it was designed specifically to get people to buy more crap that they don’t need, and that your dad probably doesn’t even want. The same goes for Mother’s Day, in that regard.

Don’t get me wrong: I still bought cards for my mom and grandma on Mother’s Day, and for my dad and grandpa on Father’s Day. However, compared to birthdays, and Christmas, these holidays just seemed kind of… There. You buy your mom/dad a card, and… Well… Not really much else happens, really. At least that’s how it worked in MY family.

But this year, Father’s Day hits all kinds of different emotions all at once. I myself have described it as a cocktail of random thoughts and feelings.

For starters, it’s the first time I’ve had to send my dad a father’s day card with more than just my signature. My baby boy got the opportunity to leave a little scribble in the card, which we translated into his name for my dad’s benefit.

Also, not only did I send a card with two signatures, but I RECEIVED my very first father’s day card ever. Maybe it was the little scribble in the card that was supposed to be my boy’s signature, maybe it was the joke in the card actually being a pretty cute one, but I think I’ll be treasuring that card way more than most of the cards I’ve received over the years.

After making a big deal about “buying crap nobody wants or really needs”, I end up getting the Father’s Day gift of grill gloves, and a pizza from Sarpino’s for my Father’s Day presents. Admittedly, I WAS needing a new pair of gloves for my charcoal grill, and Sarpino’s Pizza has been my favorite pizza place since at least 2010. If nothing else, it’s definitely a better present than a tie.

There was a lot of good times for my first Father’s Day… But there was also a bit of sadness as well.

This past January, my grandpa passed away. His health had been on the decline since October, and his advanced age made doctors hesitant to operate. He refused cimo therapy, believing it was his time, and a few months after being moved to hospice, he passed away.

I regret not being able to see him one last time before he passed. Hell, literally the last time I saw him in person was last summer, when we were doing Grandma’s celebration of life. My wife tries to cheer me up by reminding me it was also the time we announced to everybody we were having a baby… And I suppose she’s not wrong about that. Still, I regret not being able to travel more and see either of them one last time.

I tried not to focus on it too hard… But then, my mom gave me my grandpa’s old pocket knife as a father’s day present. I still don’t know how I held it together.

Not going to lie, I have no idea if I’m ever truly going to get any use out of this thing. Between my wife having a box cutter, and the fact I already have, like, two or three pocket knives of my own, it’s probably not going to see any actual use.

But, more than anything else, it’s the sentimental value mor than anything else. Just like how I appreciate having my mom’s old digital camera, despite the fact the battery is dead beyond charging, and the SD card is probably unusable at this point. I still appreciate it for all the memories it comes with, from yee olden days when people didn’t just use their phones, and photography was actually an art that took some degree of talent.

I’m sure grandpa is in a better place. And, in his last weeks on Earth, my mom made sure to show him every photo of us and our baby boy we forwarded to her to show him how we were doing. I’ve already explained in great detail the story of taking our three-month-old son to a funeral, and how he pretty much ended up stealing the show, so I won’t repeat that here, but yeah, I was glad to hear he was being kept in the loop.

You wouldn’t think you’d miss having to buy a second Father’s Day card, but that was definitely something I ended up encountering. I definitely had that “Now we need a card for grand… Oh. Right.” I’m not trying to be funny with that, either. I’m just saying that was the moment in a nutshell.

In a way, I’m still hanging on to my belief that Father’s Day is kind of unnecessary. On other hand, I’m still kind of looking forward to it, now that I AM a father.

Also, not only

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, my grandpa had passed away. It happened a couple weeks after my son was born. The announcement was sent to me via text during the delightful phase of hardcore depression and anxiety known as the baby blues, which… I mean, I’m grateful that side of my family and I are on speaking terms, and I’m glad they kept me updated on my grandpa’s condition, but man, you want to talk about the last thing you want to hear while you’re on the verge of an all out panic attack…

His funeral was this past March. My wife, my then three-month-old baby, and I made the pilgrimage to Hays, Kansas for the funeral. weeks prior, I was convinced that my wife and my child were better off staying home, but despite me quoting what I’d heard about infents, and traveling, my wife practically demanded to go with me. I don’t know how much of it was genuine concern for my well being, and how much of it was “Oh hell no! Yo’re not leaving me alone with this shrieking baby!” Either way, my mom ended up dealing the deathblow to my argument when she pointed out I was even younger than my son when I went on the pilgrimage to Oklahoma City for eye surgery.

So my wife and my baby boy ended up going with me. And contrary to what I thought was going to happen, the little guy was an angel the entire time. He was quiet, say for some fidgeting, during the actual funeral. He literally slept through the lunch-in that came afterward. He didn’t get even REMOTELY fussy until we were done scattering Grandpa’s ashes.

So yeah, I was proven wrong. As I said in a previous post, I ended up having to eat ALL of the crow when we got back home, too.

It wasn’t that I didn’t WANT my family to go with me. My mom’s side of the family loves my wife, and approved of our marriage. It was just that, on top of what I’d been told about infents and travel, a fucking funeral is kind of a heavy thing to be bringing a baby to, don’t you think?

In fact, it was more than just a funeral. It was a hard goodbye to people, and to a place I had known for so much of my life.

My maternal grandparents meant a lot to me. I didn’t favor them over my paternal grandma, but my paternal grandma passed away decades ago bycomparison. Also, my paternal grandpa passed away before I could meet him. And if I ever did, I was too young to remember.

My grandparents, and that little house of theirs out in Hays, Kansas was a place I visitted often throughout my life. They looked after me whenever my parents were on vacation… And they gave me a place to stay when my parents’ relationship finally fell apart. Both times.

The first time being in 1999, at the turn of the millennium. To make an extremely long story short, my parents originally came to visit family in Western Kansas and celebrate Christmas. Then one of their legendary fights broke out… But unlike before, my paternal grandma was there to break it up and kick people’s asses. The next thing I knew, I was being taken to Hays to see grandma and grandpa… And nobody was coming back. It kind of made that extra week of christmas vacation a lot harder to enjoy, but I would’ve much rather spent it with my grandma and grandpa than back in KC with them as they sorted shit out.

In defiance of logic and common sense, however, my parents got back together in 2001. Then remembered why they split up around 2006. Suddenly, my sophomore year of college was interrupted by an impromptu week at grandma and grandpa’s. Again, I would’ve rather been there than spend the week at home trying to ignore the shouting and what not. I just wish I had more of a warning so I could pack.

Basically, my grandparents’ house had become a sort of sanctuary, and both of them were saints for putting up with me and my teenager bullshit, and my college kid bullshit respectively while their beloved daughter and the violent idiot she married sorted their shit out.

There were moments like that… But there were positive things associated with the trip as well.

Every time we visitted, we made it a point to eat lunch at Taco Shop. AKA, Lewberger’s “White People Taco Night” song if it were a full-on restaurant. It’s western Kansas, folks.

We also took a look around their single solitary mall, creatively named The Mall. Sometimes, I’d go in and play in the arcade. Sometimes, we just mall-walked. At one point, they had an Oakleys store, and I bought a pair of Oakleys sunglasses with some birthday money. Then I found out Oakleys were the choice eyewear of PC bros, and thoroughly regretted that purchase.

I saw movies, I saw museum exhibits, I skimmed through an all Scottish store and petted the Scottish terriers the owner kept around… So many memories, and so little time.

Losing my grandpa was sad enough, but his passing meant a lot more than having to say goodbye to a family member. For me, it was saying goodbye to an entire part of my life.

Let’s face it: I have literally no reason to visit Hays, Kansas anymore. The Mall got replaced with a different, more modern looking mall I’ve long since forgotten the name of, and it’s just not the same. My grandparents’ house has long since been sold to… Someone else. I don’t know who, and I’m probably happier not knowing. The Taco Shop is there, but they have to compete with a Qdoba Mexican Grill and a Fuzzy’s Tacos now. The Walmart where I bought my first ever digital camera back in 2008 is still there, but let’s face it, it’ Walmart. That shit ain’t going anywhere anytime soon.

But I guess more than anything, it meant I’d lost that sanctuary. That place that kept me safe and secure when everyone else in my life was losing their shit at each other… Yeah, that place is gone now. I have nowhere to go now when I want to escape from it all for a weekend or two.

“Dude, you can still visit if you want. It’s not going anywhere, you know.”

Yeah? And do what, exactly? The last couple of times I’ve visited, I don’t even recognize the place anymore. Plus, visitting for the sake of visitting just feels weird. When you don’t have any family, or even any FRIENDS left to visit, what’s the point? It’s not exactly a tourist stop, after all.

So yeah, losing my grandpa has been a pretty hard goodbye to say. Once the baby blues left, and the funeral was done, though, that was it. My wife, my son, and I both came back up to KC, knowing full well we were never going to come back here for anything. I knew that this was going to be the case long before the funeral, and I know it now. That whole chapter of my life is gone now, and it’s kind of bittersweet.

I guess, more than anything, I’m writing this just to exorcise it from my mind and my soul. I don’t know what the future holds for Hays, Kansas, but whatever happens, it’s going to happen without me.