It’s been five years since Dad passed away.
Five. I think about the significance of that number. We continue without him as a family of five. All us of kids are all over 50 now. If you ask me, it’s a gorgeous prime number to look at, says the person who never enjoyed math. Yet no one ever offers up a pithy “The fifth time’s the charm,” though.
A lot has happened to us all during these last five years. A global pandemic. A lockdown. Further family losses as a result of that damn pandemic for some of us. From the macro to the micro, however, Dad’s missed a plethora of quips, chisme, and arguments. He would have loved watching Oppenheimer, but what would he say about Barbie? He would have been down to be part of the Eras Tour. I hear him say, “Que talento tiene esa niña,” as he opined at the Celine Dion show we attended in the fall of 2018 at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas. (He’d also be concerned about La Dion’s health upon learning she would be forced to stop performing a few years later.)
He’d be disgusted over the state of American politics, news junkie that he was, an avid reader of all the major magazines and newspapers for years. He’d bemoan over why many of his preferred sources were no longer available in print form, a once powerful giant hacked down to size and of little import thanks to corporate greed and a generation bloated on internet-based punditry or TikTok clips. And don’t even get Jorge Sr. started over DJT, our nation’s championed fool and dictator, a diseased moth obsessively drawn to the flame of infamy and toxic attention.
Dad would never have taken the time to text or Email. He didn’t answer the house phone when it rang, stating, “It’s never for me.” However, the possibilities of how he would run an Instagram account make my mind reel. Or, ponder this: what EMOJIS would Dad choose?!
I’m glad he missed the pandemic. It was already a challenge to keep him indoors before the lockdown, but having him bear the brunt of the virus at its peak is too much to bear, given his emphysema and recurring bouts of pneumonia. He wouldn’t have stood a chance against any infection. And the awful truth of loved ones being held in state for months after dying during this period, as so many families experienced, including mine, would have only made it unbearable x infinity.
I prefer to think about the many dinners, lunches, pizza parties, laughter, tears, and more laughter, always in English and Spanish. Sometimes, he’d swear, which remains the kickiest aspect of his unpredictable brain. And it all happened at the dining room table, where we seemed to gather more and more before he died. I don’t know if it started then, but I don’t like spending as much time in my family’s den as I enjoy sitting at that dining room table now.
For me, the best and most meaningful conversations happened in that space just before he died. And, on February 26, 2019, that was where we sat: my family, friends, neighbors, and all the people who came by to offer their condolences or pay their respects to us. One close family friend commented that it sounded like a party was in full swing based on the loudness coming out of our home.
When she stepped inside, Dad was still in the hospital bed that was his next to final resting place since we were waiting for the mortuary to pick him up and continue the post-mortem process. He lay right next to the table where we all sat! He always enjoyed our legendary conversations, referring to our lack of sonic subtlety as “beautiful noise.”
But, back to Five.
I want to bring Dad up to speed, but I think he already knows everything. I think he’d champion my need to pivot away from my career interrupted by the consequences of an insidious virus and crippling labor strikes. He’d be proud of how my family rallied around me to ensure I didn’t become a statistic or a casualty.
What does it feel like to miss someone dear for five years? It’s like five seconds, to be honest. The sharp pain of loss is not as acute now, more like a dull ache that makes you catch your breath with the reminder that “They’re gone.”
Over the last five years, I’ve understood that no one person’s grief is greater or less than another’s. Circumstances will certainly differ in how they leave us, sometimes in ways that can tear your entire being apart. It is hard to be shocked anymore when the world stops in mid-motion, and you must steady yourself and sit down to hear that someone has left our mortal plane.
I don’t even cry anymore. It is like this strange form of acceptance, respecting how our mortality is so fuckin’ fragile and precious. I don’t even ask “how” or “why” anymore. What still makes me bristle is how some terminal illnesses generate layers of polite consolations or condolences, followed by, “At least they’re not suffering anymore.” Or “At least you had time to prepare for the end.” Either way, the space people leave behind remains empty. And no matter how hard you try to process these events as inevitable, it doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Feeling loss is the great human unifier, which pisses me off. What is the point of meeting and loving the people who become invaluable in our lives only to see them leave? It hurts to be forgotten when lovers and partners no longer remain in our orbit. I wonder what our departed cherished ones feel when we don’t take a moment to remember them. I hope I never find out. My list is getting longer by the year, and I am sure yours is, too. As for the rest of you? How could you not remember those family and friends who made life so bearable and beautiful when they were here? Say their names. They will hear you.
Once you pass 50, losses look to run neck and neck with second marriages, second families, and other chances at crafting second chapters. But it is all ONE life, no? I think that’s what I’d tell Dad at our Five-Year Reunion Confab: My one life is still never boring, even though I still hate change. You won’t believe what happened today! And I miss you so damn much, Poppadoodles.
Written by Jorge Carreón 