One Year

A year ago today my life changed forever. It split into two parts, before and after. I became a different person in one terrible awful moment.

So, I had a lot of reasons to dread today. Dread the memories. Dread the realization that time kept ticking, even though my world was shattered into ten million pieces. That an entire year had passed by without one of the people I loved the most.

It wasn't as bad as I thought. I built it up so much in my head and that turned out to be helpful. It wasn't as horrible as I had prepared myself for it to be. I mean, it was hard, facing the memories of this time last year, but it didn't break me.

Maybe, I'm stronger than I thought or maybe it's the fact that it's just a day. A painful reminder yes, but I have a lot of those, every day. This is just one of the worst, but the last in a long year full of painful dates.

I survived. I survived the first year of my grief. I made it through every significant occasion and it didn't destroy me. It hurt, but I think it always will, still I made it through. I survived.

I think I thought it would be like an instant replay. That I'd relive last February 21st and vivid Technicolor and I certainly flashed back, but it's just memories. The real pain was already inflicted and everything else is just a shadow, a remembrance.

Taela was here with me all day. She went with me for a few important trips. I went to my hands and picked up my dad's Bruins hat. I hadn't seen it in a year, hadn't been ready too.

That hat was my dad's favorite. My last father's day present. He never went out without and he was wearing it when he was killed.

My aunt rescued it from the wreckage of the car, but she knew I wasn't ready to have it back. But she knew that I would want ti back. And I did, finally, I was ready to have it back and accept that my dad didn't come with it.

I'll never wear it and no one else will either, but I'll keep it for the rest of my life. It's in some ways, the last piece of my father, I have. At least it's the last physical link to him.

Next, I made Taela drive me to the scene of the accident. A year later, you can't tell that someone died there. It's look so normal and pretty. Like nothing ever happened.

After that, we went to the graveyard. I've only been to his tombstone a few times. It's too hard, too strange. I find it odd to see my father's name written on stone along with two dates summarizing his life. I don't know if that won't ever be weird.

It was still weird, but it was also disconnected. It was a stone with some words, but it had nothing to do with the man my father was. Not really.

His bodies not there (it's on our mantel--something I'm just learning to get used to), but even if it was, he still wouldn't be there. He's gone.

It reminds me of the poem that was read at his funeral and at Menya's as well.

In Remembrance
By Anonymous

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamonds glint on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,
I am the gentle morning rain.
And when you wake in the morning's hush,
I am the sweet uplifting rush,
Of quiet birds in circled flight,
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there, I did not die.

It compliments his personal beliefs and my own. He is not at his grave or even in the box of ashes. The essence, the soul is long gone. He always thought he'd became a part of the universe again. That his soul, his spirit, would merge with the universe as much as his body eventually would.

I'm going to slip back in time now. To this time last year. By 10 o'clock, my world was already shattered beyond repair. I had already heard those awful words "Rick was killed", I'll probably hear them over and over for the rest of my life.

I got up late that morning. I'd slept in and I only had a few minutes before I had to leave for work.

I remember, my dad was on the couch, watching TV. I snapped at him, but he ignored it and had me laughing a minute later. I remember, leaning down and kissing him goodbye, then telling him I loved him and then I left and by the time I came back, he was gone forever.

I flash to that scene a lot, imagine it like an opening of "Without A Trace", where the person vanishes from the frame. I imagine my father vanishing from my life as I turn away from him, though it didn't happen quite like that.

I don't know what exactly happened, no one does. Some of it I know, the beginning of the story. My mother lost a key. My father borrowed his sister's car and baby-sat for my cousins. My mom got there and took over. He left and went home.

That we knew, it's what happened after that we don't know for sure. I don't know for sure the reason my dad went out that night. We know he left the TV on and his coat at home. That he'd told my mom that he'd be at home waiting for her, but that for some reason he went out.

Nothing is known for certain, but the fact that at about ten to six, he was just outside of Castleton when his car spun out of control and he was t-boned by another car before he had a chance to get out of the way. He was killed on impact.

As the local paper would put it "A Castleton man died and two others were sent to hospital following a two-car collision south of Castleton Saturday night." There was some details of the accident itself and then, "Eric McKague, 48, of Castleton was pronounced dead at the scene. A post-mortem was to be conducted Sunday to determine the exact cause of death.

And that was it, the most horrific moment of my life summoned up in a few paragraphs, there was more, but mostly details about the weather conditions. Nothing of relevance to me, really.

At 9 o'clock that night, I got off work and my mother was waiting for me. I asked her what was wrong and she launched into the whole story, staring with losing the key. I was impatient and told her to get to the point and it was then that she told me that she thought my father was dead.

She didn't know for certain. No one had told her. But there was a big accident outside of town, she knew that. She knew from the number of cop cars that someone was dad. She knew that she couldn't find Daddy anywhere. And she knew what her heart told her.

I knew she was right. That he was dead. But for the entire car ride home, I clung to the fragile hope that we were both wrong. I dialed the cell phone over and over again, but he didn't answer. I remember that we kept talking about him in the past tense and I kept correcting myself. That I refused to cry even one tear until I knew for surest hat he was dead.

That came when he came home and my aunt told me. And my world changed forever. One moment I was happy with two parents, the next I had lost one of the two most important people in my life. My worst nightmare was playing out in vivid technicolor.

A year later, sometimes I still can't believe it's real, that he's gone and that he's not coming back. I don't get him back. I wish I could. But it's not going to happen. I have to accept that.

I'm trying to. I'm trying to remember him and not think of that awful day. Because it had nothing to do with my memories of him. It was just the end of the story, but not the most important part.

The good times are what I want to focus on. The memories of the wonderful, complex man that was my father. I want to remember his laughter, the way he never lost an argument, how infuriating he was, yet how I could never stay mad at him. Those are the things I want to recall.

So I close my eyes and let the memories wash over me.

Memories of dancing to the Stone in my living room. Of snowmobiling parties and barbecues. Of Hiawatha summers. Of long conversations. Of hearing the Stone live and dancing with him.

My father was laughter, heated debates, and music. He loved music. He felt nothing defined who you were better than a good song and he always thought that Behind Blue Eyes by The Who was the song that captured him the best. So here it is, for him.

Behind Blue Eyes
The Who 

No one knows what it´s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it´s like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies

But my dreams
They aren´t as empty
As my conscience seems to be

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That´s never free

No one knows what it´s like
To feel these feelings
Like I do
And I blame you

No one bites back as hard
On their anger
None of my pain and woe
Can show through

But my dreams
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be

I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That´s never free

When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool

And if I swallow anything evil
Put your finger down my throat
And if I shiver, please give me a blanket
Keep me warm, let me wear your coat

No one knows what it´s like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

I remember my father. I always will. I remember him the way he was. Alive. I've spent too much time in this last year dwelling on that awful day and not a time remembering the twenty years before that.

It's been a year; a long, painful year. I've learn the art of grief, of loss and pain. I've learnt how much it hurts when someone you love leaves you.

I've also learnt that welling on the bad parts isn't healthy. It isn't good for me to think of my father in those last awful moments. I need to think of him in all the moments before that, so from now on, I will.

I'm done with that. I'll remember my father's life, I won't dwell on his death. Because he is not gone, not really. He lives on in my heart and in my memories. He lives on in me.