Coming to Terms with 35

Turning 35 was something I thought about each time I went to the cemetery each Advent to visit my dad. What would it be like to actually become the same age - and then exceed - my father’s time on earth?

Recently when I was speaking to my grandma on the phone, she expressed once again the hurt his death had caused her, and how she missed him so much. These aren’t easy conversations to have for me - not only are they obviously sad to have in a general sense as one consoles their grandmother who has been grieving for over 30 years, but it also forces me to confront the fact that my process of grief was very different. The Harry Potter scar on my head still hurts sometimes (another story for another time), but entering into the chamber of secrets inside my head is sometimes a dark place where if I’m not careful, the basilisk stings. 

The pain after Big Wayne’s death for me was that a four-year-old boy was missing his dad, but moreso, where did he go… And the challenges I’d face from growing up as a boy without their dad. Let me explain:

The first time I was forced to explain what happened to anyone was when we moved from Brooklyn to New Jersey. It was amazing to move out of our two-family home and have a ‘big’ backyard where I could play outside with our dog, but what I also entered into was a very nuclear-family suburb. In a neighborhood of what must have been at least 12 boys, we pushed each other around, argued over who won whichever last game we were playing, and got under each other’s skin. In some type of back and forth nonsense with another boy, another kid whispered and giggled into the boy’s ear who I was arguing with. His comeback to me of “So Wayne doesn’t have a dadddd” was so matter of fact, that the sharp memory could be the first time I felt anxiety. 

Did I not ‘have’ a dad? I was vulnerable, I didn’t know how to think. I must have lied back at him. At six or seven, I didn’t have the proverbial understanding to articulate and explain that “No, sadly, my father died and left my entire family in disarray.” I made excuses, I hid what happened to him and my family in order to protect myself.

In first grade, I defaulted to this tactic. Being called down to the office, I sat with a lady who bluntly asked me “Where’s your dad?” Instead of asking or telling the child something along the lines of “I know what happened, and it’s okay. This happens to other kids too,” I just felt even more targeted, like I had done something wrong. I lied, and I cried. 

I was brought down again a year later. A group of kids were in the room this time, all who had divorced parents. I’ll never forget how much they cried. But my soul wasn’t in a torment like theirs, I did not feel unnecessary guilt the way they did. I wasn’t caught between two parents - in fact, I felt quite different from them. As they tried to get me to go to these groups as time went on, even in middle school, I stopped. To have to discuss it with people who could just as well use it against me seemed like an insane thing to do. 

For years I struggled with how to feel. Do I rationalize this by being angry at my dad for leaving me/us? Did I ‘have’ a dad he’s but just not here anymore, and everything was okay? In time, and with the help of a friend, I came to understand that my father did not choose to have a heart-attack and die the day he lost his life in a subway in the dead-heat of summer. 

Even if that’s not the true story of how it happened, it doesn’t matter to me. I finally had made peace with the situation, and with my dad. My thoughts now are only that I wish had gotten more time with him, and that I miss him. 

If we go to heaven, will I be an older man who meets my younger father? That sounds so strange to me. I don’t think it happens like that. My Catholic God wouldn’t allow something strange like that. 

That left me with one more choice to make. To the counselor who made me feel so awkward and watched me cry in front of her without any consolation, and the second grade teacher who reminded me I didn’t need to go to the Father’s Day school market as she mumbled to herself “That’s right, you don’t have a dad,” there was no forgiveness involved. I just don’t care about what they did to Little Wayne, nor what the little kids said. I don’t think anything of them because even if they meant to intentionally hurt me, that’s on them. Those boys and I grew up to become friends, and if I saw them today I would hug them.

Now I embrace the memory of my dad, and with a family of my own, feel so bad that he didn’t get to watch me grow up. I just miss him, and I’ll continue going to the cemetery each Christmas to share with him that revival.