Today’s the tenth anniversary of my father’s death. Let’s say I was and am aware of it. I was on a bus heading to an eatery for some good beer and some gourmet sausages, and I got a call from shellshocked older brother. He was in tears–apparently he watched them try hard to save my dad and failed–and he just blurted, “He’s gone.” I recall understanding the words, but wanting to be sure they meant what I thought they meant. They did.

He had been in the hospital because he’d been having headaches for a while that they couldn’t diagnose. He was on his way to more tests when his 02 levels crashed, and away he slipped. Post-mortem, they found him riddled with cancer that was not even on any tests or scans they did just six months earlier. My dad’s doctor was so upset that he pushed for a board review of just what the hell happened. I read the autopsy, and despite people telling me it’s impossible, he apparently had cancer in his heart as well as his brain, spine, etc., and the heart attack was apparently caused by or at least exacerbated by the cancer.

The “fun” part of me is that I just had had a heart attack myself six weeks earlier. He died during my final exams in law school, and while the school would have let me postpone the rest of them, I needed them to be done. Let’s just say 2015 is a year I don’t forget, ever.

Fast forward to today. I kinda stopped talking with my mother after my dad died. I got tired of the one-sidedness of the relationship, and without my dad’s moderating influence, it just got to the point where there’s nothing in it for me anymore. I’m not sure she even has my new phone number, but she has my wife’s, who she called to “let me know” that my dad died ten years ago today.

Yeah mom, I know. Either she thinks it didn’t mean much to me, and I didn’t remember, or she wants me to call her and comfort her. Believe me, she’d not even think that the loss meant something to me as well, and that she might just try and be of comfort to someone else.