My dad was Burt A. Solomon and he lived from January of 1953 until June of 2001. He died of a single unpressedented heart attack. When it happoned he was sitting in his car outside of the theater inside of which me and my sister were rehersing for a play, peter pan. He was helping out back stage but had some time off between run throughs. He drove to get fast food for lunch and then parked his car to sit for a bit and play gameboy. I had introduced him to gameboy a few years before and he took to it during his train commutes to work until he soon surpassed me in many games. He was never hospitalized, had never had previous heart attacks, he was never in any pain, just here one minnute and gone the next.
How do I feel about this? Sad? yeah, but not that much. And it seems like many people are surprised to here this, that my spirits don't spontaniously drop when the subject is brought up, but instead I brush it aside and continue on with the conversation. But the thing is, I greived for him. I mean I GREIVED for him. For the next two years of my life it hung over my head constantly. To be honest, though I have a strong recolection of that entire general time, I have verry little idea what happoned for the rest of that summer. I was in a daze. It was surreal. To be that sad all the time was almost rediculous but I didn't understand how I could be happeir tomorrow then I was now if tomorrow my dad was still gone. But of course my life went on and school strted and such (a horrificly bad year for all sorts of other reasons) and I wasn't sad all the time anymore but it was still there. Still going on for me. My mom was verry clear that we had to feel this. That what we were going through should not be swept under the table or covered up. So I cried a lot. And I talked about it a lot. And I think that helped me a lot.
After thouse years passed I started to try to idealize him in my mind. Not because I felt there was any truth in that but I felt that it was the norm, for a boy to idealize his dead father, and I felt that adults expected it of me. I didn't sit and think this out obviously, it wasn't compleatly consious. Despite this I was never actualy able to idealize him in my mind. I knew my dad pretty well, probably better then most kids really know their fathers at that point in there lives, and because of that I knew him for a human being and was not able to think of him as anywhere near perfect.
And so, I don't know, I don't think about it that much. It doesn't occure to me to think about that much. I still miss him, but I miss him like I miss other things from that time. Like I miss my fourth grade intreations with my friends, like I miss being so short that the world seems like a never ending maze. But theres just not the forbearing sadness there once was, and thats good. I think his death has had an impact on me, but what had a greater impact was him and his generaly fatherly influence on me and then the sudden lack there of more then the shock and saddness of his passing. I'm not the same person I was then, not even remotely. I don't aspire to be my dad or be even close to what he was, except in a verry few aspects. And really, why I don't bring it up is because this seems out of the ordenary for people, and it takes too long to explain adequetly why I'm so ok with it. Its kind of strange, the whole time I was sad about it I just DID NOT want to talk to anyone about it. Every one was always asking me if I needed to talk about it and I just wanted them to go away, to shut up. Now I don't care to talk about it for a compleatly different reason. And thats all I have to say right now.
and in my mind i still need a place to go
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