My father, Ted Hauser, and me.
It was my father’s 82nd birthday on Wednesday, but he wasn’t here to celebrate: He died of cancer when he was 35 and I was 10 months old.
As a child, I think I believed that grown ups stop missing people who died long ago. I think it seemed a little odd to me when a grandmother would start talking about her own grandmother with sorrow.
I’ve realized, of course, that loss never really ends. We live differently with it over time, but it’s always there. I am always, and will always be, a little girl wanting to hold her dad’s hand.
82 years ago, in the very hospital and on the very floor on which my daughter was born (coincidentally on the anniversary of his death), my father was born, a tiny, wrinkled thing, a baby — a promise. Not anyone’s dead dad yet, not anyone’s dead husband. Just a promise. I wish he could have lived more of that promise out before he was taken from us.
Billy Bragg wrote a lovely, aching song of sorrow and missing for his own father (video after the jump), and while it seems odd to sing it for my dad — the lyrics show that Billy has very clear memories, and I have not a one — the grief in his words feels like the grief in my own heart. So: This is for you Daddy. I love you.
Some photographs of a summer’s day
A little boy’s lifetime away
Is all I’ve left of everything we’ve done
Like a pale moon in a sunny sky
Death gazes down as I pass by
To remind me that I’m but my father’s sonI offer up to you
This tribute
I offer up to you
This tank park salute
full lyrics; What is Fridays with Billy?
Like a pale moon in a sunny sky
Death gazes down as I pass by
wow. that is beautiful.
One thing that sustains us in grief and loss is the memories we hold of that person. My heart to your heart that your own ‘memories’ are from those of others and through photos. My mother’s father died when I was a baby so I can only ‘know’ him through the stories and memories of others and the one photo of him holding me as a new born. It is so poignant to me that even though I have no personal memory of him he is still part of me and I, a part of him.
Thank you for sharing this here. Your Dad will always be a part of you and you, a part of him.
I never really knew my grandfathers. Both passed away before I was 4. My only real memory is of my paternal grandfather, and that’s mostly because of something that really irritated my mother. He was running a gas station/convenience store, and my younger sister and I (3 and 2) were fascinated by the glass counter containing all the candy. Grandpa decided that his job was to spoil his grandchildren, so he opened up the counter for us to go to town with the candy. Mom was not too happy to see her children rooting through candy, and she had to deal with the sugar rush. We liked it though. :-D