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It was generous of Rome, I suppose. My very first trip to Italy’s capital, and to provide me with the most authentic experience possible, Rome felt like it was actually burning. Every moment of the three days I spent there was like walking on coals. Across the sun. Wearing aluminum foil. I mean, it was hot.

The locals nicknamed the heatwave Lucifer, after the FOX TV show about the devil partnering with a female detective to solve crimes (and maybe – fall in love!). Or perhaps it was named after the devil him or herself (#feminism) because it was absolutely the temperature of pure evil.

My Vatican excursion, and my time in Italy as a whole, was about midway through a 6-week solo trip across Europe. I had just been laid off from my job, had a small but not unexciting cancer scare and had moved back to New York to help my mother sell her house after my dad’s recent death (which is a better narrative than I moved back home because I was homeless and jobless). I took my generous severance and like the good millennial I am, decided to blow most of it on THE TRIP OF A LIFETIME. 

I looked around at the state of my life: Single and in my mid-thirties, I had no real-life responsibilities other than the crippling debt I had come to know as a friend and life partner. Rebecca, the name I gave my debt monster in my late twenties, would certainly be waiting for me upon my return to keep me warm during all my most visceral debt-induced panic attacks. Plus, with no job prospects to speak of, and no real urge to start the arduous process of job hunting, it was time to Eat, Pray, Shlub through Europe. Basically, at thirty-six years old, I finally took my gap year.

My plan was simple: I’d just go to The Vatican, pay whatever I had to skip the line and zip through the whole thing in thirty minutes, forty if the gift shop had Pope Pun t-shirts (Snap, Crackle, POPE; A picture of The Pope in his Popemobile that said: My Other Ride Is Your Mom). I’d be getting yelled at for drinking espresso on the Spanish Steps by lunch.

I don’t like to brag but... being wrong about life choices, is kind of the defining characteristic of my overall personal brand. If two roads diverged in a wood, I’d somehow manage to climb the tree separating the two paths, get stuck up there and die of exposure. It’s just who I am, you guys. But in the lifetime of lefts that should’ve been rights, I’ve never been as wrong about anything as I was about The Vatican. Like all good horror stories, this was my “Let’s check out the abandoned camp” or “Let’s bone in the lake – no one’s around!” moment I would come to regret later.

By this point in my overall trip, I had achieved this odd mix of overconfidence in my ability to be a capital-T Tourist, with a nearly pathologically unreasonable disdain for tours, guides and waiting in line. Especially if that line was just a pre-line to get on line or even worse a queue before a line that led to a holding area before you could get in line. This sort of living purgatory happens a lot when you are traveling to the most touristy places on the planet. I get that. But as an Ugly American, I simply felt I should be able to get exactly what I wanted when I wanted it and if I couldn’t, throw money at the problem until I get my way. (I was not the best representation for our country during my time abroad, although I may have, sadly, been a fairly accurate one. For that I apologize. To the world.)

My smug confidence in my plan to zip in and out of The Vatican in roughly the amount of time it would take to watch the first two episodes of the new season of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt was bolstered by a successful trip on the Rome subway system. Well, maybe I’m being generous with the use of the word successful: As I left my hotel, I immediately walked up to a fully armed French soldier, frantically asking where the entrance to the subway was located. With a language barrier separating us he physically turned my body around to show the entrance to the train all of 15 feet away from me. From there on out, though, it was smooth sailing. I took this as a particularly good sign: 

When I got out of the subway I was just a few blocks away from The Vatican, and despite that, I arrived drenched in so much sweat I could have easily been baptized where I stood. I ducked and weaved past several aggressive guides trying to recruit me for their tours; I won’t fall for your shenanigans, mio amico. I actively felt bad for the tourists, trying to navigate the fast, smooth talking tour guides, fanny packs askew, cameras strapped to their chests. This isn’t my first rodeo, you charlatans! As I got closer and closer to the The Vatican, however,  the line to enter the building got longer and longer; I started to feel the first twinge of doubt about my ability to self-navigate a place visited by 20,000 people every damn day.

Seeing the disappointment crest over my face, a tour guide pounced. “You need a tour pass to get in,” he said quietly, calmly, like he didn’t need my business. He was Indian or Middle Eastern, wearing a button-down shirt and slacks, which I found comforting. I knew he must be baking in the sun, and this, along with the Vatican badge he sported, convinced me he was a bit more official.

“I just want to skip the line,” I responded, almost to myself, like a child quietly crying, trying to convince himself there are no monsters lurking under his bed.

“I can help you with that,” he shrugged. He said it in such a nonchalant way he made me think he was part of the actual Vatican team - whatever that meant - and not just another ravenous tour guide trying to make a sale. I held onto that belief as we sprinted down the block, I held onto that belief as we dodged cars as we crossed a busy intersection and I held onto that belief for the entire time I stood in a small windowless basement room getting signed up for the tour I was being sold. It’s a miracle I haven’t been murdered. 

I had forty-five minutes to kill, so I grabbed a pork cheek sandwich, washed down with several beers. After being defeated, tour-wise, I was helpless against the remarkably pushy saleswoman at a nearby clothing store. Before my years of retail work could snap me out of my daze I got talked into buying a pair of shorts I didn’t need, a button-down short-sleeved shirt that didn’t fit and a pair of swim trunks so short, they appropriately left no question about my religion.  

Pork cheek and Italian beer stuffed in my belly and unnecessary purchase stuffed into my backpack, I was now ready to be blessed. A crowd started to form under the six branches of shade the anemic tree outside the tour office provided. The excitement was palpable, and I could feel it split into three different categories: 1) Religious-based fervor about the holy place we were about to enter; 2) Excitement about seeing one of the most famous attractions in the world; 3) Elation about entering a room with air conditioning.

Now that it was time to start making our way back the few blocks to the Vatican, our tour guide assembled us to share a few rules, which sounded eerily similar to what you hear lawyers telling people about visiting family members in prison. I don’t recall the guide’s name, because I sweat that information out, along with my ability to do long division. I do remember that he was at least 150 years old and I kept wondering how I would go about getting my ticket off his body if he dropped dead. This trip took me to some dark places.

Just as I was about to hit send on a text message letting my family know that when I arrived back home, I’d be nothing more than a puddle of salty water, we arrived at the heavily guarded gates of The Vatican. Even though we were on the expedited line, it still took thirty minutes to cross the threshold into the room that would lead us through security and into the actual start of the tour. The lobby was stuffy and packed with people, herded like some meta interpretation of cattle-as-tourists-as-cattle. There we waited. And waited. And waited.

As you do in times of crisis, I attached myself to other survivors. In this case, a family of three - parents in their late-thirties and a three or four year-old child, sweaty and rightfully miserable in his stroller. By now it had been ninety minutes since entry, and I was trying to sow the seeds of rebellion into my compatriots: “We’ve been waiting here for a while.”

“Yeah, little man is getting tired,” the father said back to me, absently but not with the tone of annoyance I was trying to cultivate. To the kid’s credit, he wasn’t throwing a fit, just uncomfortable, and his cries were more like muffled sobs of someone resigned to their fate but not very happy about it.

“He’s just expressing how we are all feeling. I think it’s brave,” I said, almost catatonic.

“I’m sure we’ll be in soon. It’ll be worth it,” the mother said. I was stunned by her optimism and determination. I wanted to take her by the shoulders and shake her: You fool! We are never going to leave this room! Don’t you see? Don’t you get it? We’re Vatican Lobby people now!  

Instead, I got angry, probably for the first time in the whole experience. I had been frustrated, and impatient, and hot – dear sweet heaven, it was hot - but this made me mad. Not at the woman, trying to cool down her son with precious elixir known as bottled water. Not at her husband, steely eyed but still eager to see the wonders that awaited beyond the security. I was mad because these people were there for a beautiful, powerful experience that deeply mattered to them. I noticed, for the first time, the crosses they all wore, glistening through sweat and waves of heat. This whole time I couldn’t fathom what would possess these seemingly normal people to weather this heat to take their kid on an excursion into a big building with art and religious artifacts. As a well-established quitter, there were five times I would’ve turned around and tried another day. To me, this was something to check off a list. Going to Rome, potentially for the only time in my life, I’d need to see The Vatican to say that I had seen The Vatican. Don’t get me wrong, I was excited – at least initially. But that excitement waned pretty quickly, as I became less a tourist and more a contestant in a co-ed Spring Break wet t-shirt contest for hairy men with man boobs.  These people were there for spiritual and holy reasons; this was a pilgrimage for them.  As someone who spent the last ten years trying to improve user and participant experience, I was offended that these people – and the thousands with them – weren’t getting an experience they deserved.

Just as I was ready to take a torch to the place, we started moving. Our tour guide, thankfully still alive, started handing out the tickets we needed to get through security. The other members of the tour swarmed him, and in a move that proves I would not survive any kind of Zombie Apocalypse, I let the family of three go ahead of me to get their tickets, even though I wasn’t entirely confident I wouldn’t be left without tickets, stuck in God’s literal waiting room. Once they had their tickets, however, I elbowed my way to the front and got my pass. I felt like a boy of thirty-three again! I was going to make it. We were going to get through this – together.

Only the second we made it through the security, my fight or flight instincts kicked in and I ran for it. The idea of standing around for the next three hours with this group of people and this old man who looked like a half-melted statues come to life, was too much for me. I took a last glance at the family of three.  Despite my urge to fight for their experience and the polite conversation we made, I’m certain my existence barely registered for them, but I felt a kinship with them in the story I was creating in my mind. I stretched out my hand, mouthed “Stay alive!” and ran up the stairs, hiding – I HID – from my tour. It had become clear to me that I had lost my mind.

Once I was sure the tour had passed, I found the closest information desk and asked: “What is the fastest way to see everything?” I was handed a map and a look of disgust, and was on my way.

The next two hours were both a blur and happened in super slow motion. There were so many people in this sarcophagus of a building that I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I abandoned the audio tour within the first 10 minutes; it could still be under the oddly attractive statue of the guy with the dog for a head. Every way I moved I bumped into people – and was it just me or was it getting even hotter? Could they have air conditioning in The Vatican? And where was the Pope? I was told there would be a Pope! How was the family of three doing? Would I ever see my mom again? Should I re-watch Veronica Mars? My mind couldn’t stop.

As I descended further into madness, a single thought snapped me out of it. I realized why this kind of oppressive human smog and sensory overload was so familiar and unsettling: It was just like being at Ikea on a Saturday afternoon. And much like Ikea, there was only one way in and one way out. “The only way was through,” I actually said out loud to no one in particular. Steeling myself, I became determined to see The Sistine Chapel and get the hell out of there.

I began walking with more purpose, following the signs to the Sistine Chapel, which was never as close as promised (just like Swedish meatballs at Ikea!). I snapped a few pictures, mostly to take a look at later. I stopped and stared at some art and looked up to appreciate a ceiling or two. Cool cool cool cool cool – where’s the exit?

Now, months after my escape, I can’t remember if I descended higher and higher or lower and lower to reach The Sistine Chapel, but I finally got there. And it was… disappointing. Or maybe it wasn’t? I’m not sure because you couldn’t actually stop and look at the ceiling, which admittedly was beautiful. You had to keep going, keep going, keep going, like Dory from Finding Nemo. I didn’t think I’d be making comparisons to an Ellen DeGeneres-voiced cartoon character to describe seeing one of the most famous sites in the world, but here we are.

That feeling of anger began to wash over me again. I am not a very religious person, nor an art or history buff (I know, I’m the worst), but I am someone who likes a well-run and well-executed event. And this was neither. I kept thinking about that family or any religious person I knew, not just going to The Vatican because they were in Rome and “they should go”, but rather as a truly holy rite of passage. I may not share those views, but I do think they deserve an experience that reflects their devotion to the church. Maybe that family had a great time, maybe this filled their bucket, but if not, I have a strongly worded letter to the head of The Vatican (The Pope? God?) about some logistical and user experience enhancements.

Once I was prodded through The Sistine Chapel, all other thoughts left my mind other than Lakeith Stanfield screaming GET OUT. I felt like a rat trying to burrow through a man’s chest to survive in Game of Thrones. Yes, maybe that heat I was feeling was the flames of hell trying to suck me in because, well, I wasn’t being my most pious self. And yes, I did make myself a rat burrowing through human flesh in that analogy, but that doesn’t make it untrue. Like any time I’ve ever been to Ikea, it was time to forget about everything that you cared about when you entered, fight the tourists and find the way out. 

I began to walk faster, now only snapping pictures of things while I was physically walking by them. Everywhere I went, I bumped into a German tourist, who seemed, to be blocking me. I wanted to scream: WHY DO YOU WANT ME TO STAY HERE? WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR!?!?! It felt like days since I had seen the sun or felt the steaming hot gust of Roman air on my face. I wondered: Would I be different now? What had changed in the world? Do proper hover boards finally exist?

Thirty minutes later, I burst through doors and was free to leave… ooh the gift shop! I bought a few rosary beads for friends who would appreciate them, but alas no Pope shirt that had his face superimposed on a bunch of Emojis.

From there I walked briskly to what I knew would be doors leading to the outside. I was an inside person now, and worried that the daylight would burn on my skin after so long. When I arrived in the courtyard of St. Peter Basilica it took all my strength not to drop to my knees, arms stretched to the sky a la Andy Dufrense at the end of Shawshank Redemption.

I walked around St. Peter Basilica for a bit and headed to a pizza place I had read about. I stumbled in like a man out of the dessert begging for water. I ordered a local beer and the house special pizza. The pizza arrived perfect, beautiful, profoundly satisfying. 

It was the closest I felt to God all day.  

The Defenders: Iron Fist is powerful and strong and good, he kicks and punches - He's kind of like Buffy!

Daenerys: We need to take off his shirt!

Maester: Ay my queen! For warmth, great idea!

Daenerys: And his pants!

Maester: His pants, your grace? I don't think that's -

It’s been 18 months since my dad died and my life barely resembles the one he inhabited. 18 months ago, I had just moved from New York to Maryland (back in NY), rented a great, marina-front apartment (current situation: childhood home), was starting a big new position (eliminated) at the organization where I worked for over a decade (unemployed). To be fair, 18 months ago I had also never left the United States, and am currently writing this on a ferry journeying from Athens, Greece to Naxos Island, so it’s not all bad.

I’m wrapping up Week 2 in a month-long trek across Europe. For the equation to that, please see above loss of job, add severance and divide by limited adult responsibilities. This jaunt has already taken me to London, Edinburgh & Prague, across my parents homeland of Bulgaria, a popover in Athens and en route, at time of writing, to Naxos. Still to come: a week through Italy, a stop in Barcelona and finally the south of France. I suppose I should clarify, in this post-Fake News world we live in, that I have been to the Bahamas as a child, Puerto Rico as an adult and all countries in Epcot Center’s World Showcase Pavilion. You can follow the adventures of #AnEddieAbroad on Instagram. #branding

Over these past few weeks, as I’ve been on this adventure of a lifetime, I can’t help but wonder (cue Carrie Bradshaw voiceover): With my current life changing at such a breakneck pace, the loss of my father seems more and more distant. That must mean something, right? Have I gotten over it? Does moving around so much mean I have moved on? As I’ve come to ponder that question, I’ve realized the answer is simple: There is no answer to the question because the question is stupid.

You move on from the Beckys being mean to you in 2nd grade, you “get over” being too sick to go to Safety Town in 3rd grade. Here’s the shocker of loss I’ve discovered: You don’t ever move on. You never get over it. You start over.

After this kind of life change you just begin to exist as a slightly different version of your self, you start over. This is the version of me that doesn’t have a father. Because of that loss, I’ve felt and experienced so much more life - and it shows. Maybe not in creases on my face (post-Whole30 my skin looks amazing), but in a nearly invisible shadow cast over me. This new version functions in the world in a different way, like having an indiscernible limp after a bad car accident. New people I meet, hopefully at my new job (it doesn’t exist yet, so let’s all take a moment to cross our collective fingers, shall we?), will never know him, or know me with him in my life, and that will make our relationship different - not better or worse, just different.  I think I may be less kind now, perhaps not in a way that anyone else notices but in ways that I feel in myself. Or maybe I just see the world that way, not necessarily darker but a hue more grey.  I’m certainly less patient and find anger and jealousy much easier to access than before. I’m now the kind of person who prescribes meaning to everything – pennies, orange cats. Sometimes I’m so overwhelmed by the navigation of life as the new me, that I need to stop and stand still for a moment. I think I’ve developed eczema on my leg. 

Now I realize this sounds mostly bleak, but really, it’s not: I go to the gym now and care about my personal health. I got everything in my body from top to tail checked out, because I wanted to feel strong and healthy, but also because it seemed like something a person who lost his father at 70 should do. I used to joke that I moved to Maryland to escape my friends and now if I could crawl into their collective skin, it wouldn’t be close enough. I’m closer with my mother, appreciate my sister, value my family more. Every Thursday in June I did something new that scared me – went to Yoga, took a spin class, got a tattoo. This version of me is writing because nothing makes me happier, and am trying, at thirty-six, to pursue it as my career (feel free to forward this to any agents you may know). I’ve gotten braver, more adventurous, even though a few months ago, just existing in the world was terrifying. Now I’m traipsing across Europe breathing in all it has to offer. Perhaps most telling of all, I’ve skipped an astonishing number of naps on this trip in favor of one more soul-righting site to see. Even when it’s not perfect, maybe especially when it’s not perfect, I feel an appreciation for life, for living, that I didn’t before. This new version of me I started over as, took the lemons that life served me, and decided to go to Europe for a month, because by the time I get back the lemons will have rotted and disintegrated into nothing.  I don’t think I would’ve done that six months, a year, two years ago.

When you experience a huge loss - or, I suppose any big life change, as I imagine a lot of parents can relate to some of what I’m saying – a version of yourself vanishes, like Marty McFly’s siblings from a picture every time his mom flirts with him in Back to the Future (Sidenote: That movie has a lot of problematic elements). I didn’t expect this, even though, to be fair, I’ve experienced some degree of loss over my thirty-six years on Earth. The person who moved to Maryland for an exciting adventure to take on a big new job and meet new people and maybe find someone to spend his life with, that person is gone. In this particular chapter of “Choose Your Own Adventure: Life Edition”, I have lost the option of seeing what would become of that (potentially) loveable scamp. I suppose he’d grow to love soft shell crab and Old Bay seasoning, maybe he would’ve fought harder to stay at the job he’s been at since he was twenty-five, not because he wanted to but because it felt safe; Maybe he would’ve been brave enough to stay in Maryland for another year, just to give it a real chance to work, even if he hadn’t stayed at his job. But even that makes this guy a stranger - an outline of a person who will never be colored in. I never expected to mourn anything other than losing my dad, but I’ve come to realize that I grieve for that version of my life. Or maybe it’s just curiosity, or anger that I’ll never know, but it’s there, once at the outside of the frame, now coming sharper into focus. The real truth is this all stopped being about my dad a long, long time ago. To pretend like it hasn’t, like this is still only about him not being here, is like blaming a mass-shooting victim for being in the way of the gun.

I’ve become both better and worse in ways subtle and grand, in ways I probably wouldn’t have realized if I hadn’t started writing all this eighteen months ago. In death, my father gave me this incredible gift of a new version of myself, a new skin after the old has been shed, or more accurately, ripped off me. It was a gift I didn’t ask for, which sent me on a journey I wasn't quite ready for like Frodo and his ring or Buffy and her Slayer-ness or some other less nerdy example. It is a gift, this Eddie Reboot, that has made me want to call Life’s Manager and ask about the return policy several times. If given a map I could draw a line from the person I am today, standing on this boat, and the call I got from my mother telling me to drive to the hospital in New York during a snowstorm. It’s awful and wonderful to feel like anything good came from losing him; spectacular and devastating to think this new version of me may be the best one, that it could only exist without my father here.

I still miss my dad, sometimes so much, so thoroughly, so unexpectedly, I need to excuse myself in the middle of a conversation at a Scotland bar so I can go have a good, beer-infused cry in a bathroom stall. Sometimes I am so taken over by the magnitude of the beauty of this trip – both literally and figuratively – that I find myself needing to catch my breath. Eighteen months, to the day, after my father left us, I found myself in Bulgaria where he lived as a kid. Just a few days later I was in Greece, my old mentor and Work Dad Ted’s beloved home country on the anniversary of his passing. I no longer take the magic of that happenstance for granted.

Guy at Concessions: Would you like to round-up and donate your change to charity?

Jennie: What's that?

Claire: Get the tablet

Danny: Revenge!

Claire: Get the tablet

Danny: My parents are dead!

Well, it’s been a year. I’m all better now. 

I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, as if the one year anniversary of my dad’s passing was really an inordinately-sized, ceremonial switch that was going to flip, once I had succeeded in - what? - surviving the first year without him? Would balloons fall from the sky, and sirens blare, celebrating me as the 1,000,000,000,000th person to have a dad who died a year ago? It seems ludicrous now, standing on the other side of this milestone. To paraphrase Tig Notaro, it was just a day - another day, slightly smaller, because my dad wasn’t in it.

I woke up nervous, like you do when you drink too much the night before. I slowly opened my eyes and took stock of the situation around me: Am I hungover? Did I throw up? Ugh, did I throw up on myself? Are there any clues of another person in here? Wait, am I fine? Wait, no I’m not. Wait, yes, I am.

Bad days, when grieving, have a tendency to sneak up on you like a really good twist from a really great TV show. That lady falls down the elevator shaft, Buffy sacrifices herself, we’re in a flash-forward not a flashback (I called that one, btw, and to date, its my greatest achievement. In life.). It’s not the days that you expect. His birthday, for example, came and went, while my birthday, was a day I was completely overcome, grief washing over me like Robert Redford shampooing Meryl Streep’s hair. My birthday, unexpectedly was a day I fell into that familiar and oddly comforting grief quicksand, where the harder you struggle to get out of it, the further into it you sink. I didn’t see it coming – like finding out we’ve been in the Bad Place all along! – and that shock added to my inability to cope with the day. 

After a weekend in New York celebrating my father and this milestone with friends and family, I ached to be alone.  This, in of itself, is odd, because I live alone, fairly isolated from the bulk of my vast network of support, something I have been homesick for all year, if you can still be homesick at 35 years old (and if ‘homesick’ can be used as an adverb). My cousins, who live nearby, invited me over for dinner, but I declined. My friends called and texted, while I replied with heart emojis saying that I didn’t feel like talking. They were all reminders of why, despite the constant hum, the seemingly endless current of missing my dad, and the distance it has put between me and my life, I am so lucky to have people ready to lift me up. Being alone for me is a choice, a choice many others don’t have. I’m thankful for that. 

I spent the day of the anniversary at the movies. It is an escape I’ve sought out more and more these past few weeks, I suppose a way to be alone, without being completely alone. I saw La La Land, a movie about dreamers and movie magic that I loved despite the current swell of backlash, and Fences, a movie about fathers and sons, so, you know, ouch (But Viola Davis FTW!). I ate McDonald’s for breakfast, like I did when I was a kid going fishing with my dad and cousins, and popcorn for lunch. I got home and went down a pretty deep rabbit hole of Dying Loved One movies: Other People (mother, cancer, dead), One True Thing (Meryl Streep, cancer, dead) and Miss You Already (Toni Collette, best friend, dead). They were all oddly comforting and cathartic in a weird, self-mutilating way. Dazed from so much time spent in the dark, I went to sleep and woke up on the anniversary of the day after my dad died. I FaceTimed with my mom and niece, and agreed that yesterday was just another day. Today would be better, worse, the same - it just wouldn’t be January 24th. 

Years ago, when I first started working with my old boss Jenn, we had a lot of drive time, which is how we forged a bond so strong that I once threatened to drive us both off a cliff in retribution to a piece of feedback she gave me and all we did was laugh about it so hard that I almost did accidentally drive us off a cliff. Once she asked me, maybe a year into working together, if I was close with my parents. I was stunned. I turned to her and stated, simply: We are the Mouradians. It’s kind of like how when people ask me if I like living in Maryland, my answer is a simple: It’s fine, but, I’m from New York. It’s a non-answer that I think is actually the best answer, but, in the end, is the answer that most makes me seem like a dick.

It was shocking to me that someone wouldn’t know that we were close within the first 90 seconds of meeting me. It’s part of my brand - big Armenian family, tight-knit, adorably corpulent. To be fair, I’m not close with my parents in a Lorelai-Rory Gilmore kind of way (Side note: there is a whole dissertation coming on how watching Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, with my mom after I had back surgery, was like watching my life unfold on screen), but rather in a Coach/Tami/Julie Taylor way. They are my parents and we are close because they are my parents. I never thought of needing more than that, of that not being enough. Closeness to my parents was about proximity, endless reservoirs of support and love – it’s hard to define and that’s what makes it special, irreplaceable, and as it turns out, unbearable, when missing. 

To that end, as I continued to struggle with the loss of my dad, it was my mother who said to me that she didn’t realized how close I was to my father. And I had to stop, pause for a second and think about what that meant, because I guess, it was something I hadn’t realized either. I didn’t call my dad to talk about the ‘game’, we both would’ve been lost on that front, although sometimes we did that with Survivor;  He loved fishing, I loved reading while he was fishing. In the end, we had more in common, more core traits and similarities than a love of the same things. As it turns out that brought about a closeness that is deafening in his absence because it could only exist once he was gone. I had never made any kind of important decision in my life without talking to my dad, without knowing he was in my corner, without his support.  Without that I feel lost, even unsafe, and untethered. Less so every day, sure, but still there, a part of me, a voice hollow and echoing, rattling around my brain like a movie quote you can’t quite place or a commercial jingle you keep humming. 

There are a lot of things that I’ve learned this year, things I’ve tried to work through with all these essays. Sharing my grief, to a point, felt very selfish. On the one hand, I had too much to say, too much to feel, to keep it all to myself. Here is my gift to you all, share my grief – you’re welcome! I feel confident when I say: people preferred it when my gifts were personalized Christmas stockings. On the other hand, it was an easy way to answer a whole series of questions about how I was doing, without having to answer any of them directly. Mostly, though, it was the easiest way to keep my dad with me – tangibly, literally at my fingertips – for as long as possible. This is perhaps the biggest lesson to learn of all, that for all my might, for all my trying, he will never be as close as I want him to be, which is, of course, here, with me. And each day, I feel him slipping further and further away. And writing this post in particular, finishing this story – A Year’s Worth of Grief – is him finally slipping through my grasp. I am not saying I will forget him, that I won’t think of him, but maybe it won’t be every day, maybe it won’t be as detailed as it has been. How cracked the heels of his feet were compared to how soft his bald head was. I keep a blanket that was my grandmother’s in my guest room closet, but I don’t let anyone use it, because it still smells like her. I don’t remember what my dad smells like anymore; it’s not something I can summon immediately to my mind like a magic trick, as I can his laugh - the peaks and valleys of it, the perfect shades of it. This, in some ways, is a different kind of ending, a different form of loss.

My 12th favorite movie of all-time is Billy Elliot. In the movie, Billy lets his dance teacher read a letter his mother wrote to him before she passed away. Mrs. Wilkinson says: “She must have been an amazing woman.” Billy, only a kid, responds, “She was just my mum.” People say to me all the time, how incredible my dad was or must have been, how proud he surely was of me. My dad wasn’t some super human, I know that; He was funny, and nice and stubborn and far too set in his ways. I wish he was a little more of a fighter because when I give up on something, I think that it’s my worst trait and I wonder if I get it from him. He was averse to risk and might’ve voted Republican in this election but his heart was bursting with love and support and kindness (Well, maybe bursting is the wrong way to put it, considering he died of heart disease, but you get the idea). He was a good friend, a good man, and I know he’s proud of me without anyone having to tell me (although, nice to hear, of course), and that’s the greatest gift he left me with: Just missing him, simply him - no regrets, no deep-seeded issues other than him being gone.  He was just my dad. And that was amazing.

In the wake of the 1-2 sucker punch ending of 2016, the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, I re-watched one of my all-time favorite movies Postcards from the Edge, which is based on Carrie Fisher's semi-autobiographical book vaguely about her relationship with her famous mother. It's smart, funny as hell and one of the best written comedies about showbiz, I'd argue, ever. 

The set-piece roughly a third of the way through the movie where both Suzanne (Streep), a recovering addict just out of rehab and back home under her mother's care and Doris (MacLaine), perform at a "Getting Out of Rehab" Party is a highlight, second only to the famous fight on the staircase scene. I had always been partial to Streep's rendition of Ray Charles's "You Don't Know Me", mostly because it was the first-time I ever heard what is now one of my favorite songs (Also: Character development!). But since re-watching it, and in particular these past few weeks, I can't stop thinking about the line, and the singing/wordless acting that accompanies: "I got through all of last year... and I'm still here." My mantra for the next week, month and possibly all of 2017. Anyone who needs to borrow it, feel free.