Another Day

I was sitting at my desk a few minutes ago, trying to study for the midterm I will be taking on Wednesday, when in a fit of restlessness I looked up. At the back of my desk, towards the wall, stand two pictures of my father.

His birthday was three days ago.

I'm filled by such an indescribable empty feeling. I've no patience with so many of the petty problems I have to deal with every day. To listen to the complaints of people who don't realize how great they've got it, and to have to endure it all with a perfectly straight face and hopefully with a bit of helpful advice, grates like flint on steel, sharpening an already biting pain.

I still remember Wednesday so well. I would call my father at work every Wednesday. He would immediately drop everything, no matter how busy he was, just to take a few minutes to talk to me. The pain and fatigue in his voice would immediately melt away because for those few minutes, energized as he was by the knowledge that his only son loved him enough to call. He was always so happy every Wednesday thanks to those calls, his coworkers told me during his wake and funeral. So happy, just because of a telephone call.

I would have called him to wish him a happy birthday, as I always would. A year older, another year of backbreaking work under his belt, and yet he'd be so happy just because of a simple phone call. Because he knew that his son loved him. What else does a father really need?

It's so simple I can't describe it. It's so powerful that, well, I can't describe it.

I doubt I'll ever fully wrap my mind around what it means to love, and I'm sure those who say they have are lying. The fact that a man can work himself, literally to death, for the sake of his wife and children, who he loves infinitely more than life itself, will never cease to confuse me, despite making so much sense. It's like staring at something sublime, a towering mountain or a never-ending sea: the sheer greatness of these objects cannot help but impress, and cannot help but be to much to comprehend.

So now I think about all the telephone calls I'll never get a chance to make. About all the handshakes I'll miss. About all the hours of just sitting and talking I was really, really looking forward to. And it hurts, it really, really hurts.

I look back on all the times I'll never forget. I remember two summers ago, when I visited my father nearly every day for lunch. We'd always sit upstairs for an hour or so and just talk for a while. Work would wait during that hour because it was as close to sacred as you can get outside of church. He'd tell me things I'd never heard before, things he probably never told anyone else. I got to know my father a lot that summer. 2002, one hell of a year.

But that year is gone. Those days are gone. Another day goes by, so much poorer than the days that once were.

I wish I could have done something at least. My mother visited his grave and left some flowers, keeping her weekly vigil going. I wish I could have been there, even though the few minutes I spend by his grave every week I'm home are invariably painful.

I really wish I could call and say hello. That's it, just a simple hello.

My father took it really hard when my grandfather died. A few weeks later, he received a call at work. On the other end of the line was the rough, unmistakable voice of my grandfather, repeating my father's name over and over and telling him how much he loved him.

One of those wouldn't be so bad.

Lord have mercy on his soul, on the souls of my grandfather and grandmother, and on those he's left behind. Mother Mary and St. Andrew, along with the whole host of Heaven, please pray for us.