On January 28, 2023, I will have officially spent 20 of my 45 years on this planet without my dad in it. He died on a Tuesday night, not long after George W Bush had given one of his embarrassing to everyone but him State of the Union speeches. I like to joke that the stress of watching George W Bush’s bloodlust for Iraqi “liberation” started the Rube Goldberg style process of what would soon be a full on “here-one-second gone-the-next” heart attack (as reruns of “Everybody Loves Raymond” played on the TV, no less), but truth be told, the groundwork for my dad’s heart attack began decades prior when he went to a more sedentary lifestyle while developing a love for Texas BBQ.
My dad wasn’t exactly the healthiest of people, but I wouldn’t say he was physically all that unhealthy, either. He gave up drinking in the 70s and was a proud member of Alcoholics Anonymous. If he smoked at all, he had quit well before I (the third of four siblings) came around in 1977. He worked in the yard fairly frequently and without issue, but wasn’t exactly out there doing the hard stuff like mowing or weed-eating (he passed those duties off my brother and me). He liked to joke that he wasn’t in shape but was a shape. He liked to dip bacon into his syrup. …and he liked milkshakes. Okay, maybe he was in bad physical shape after all.
Mentally and spiritually, he was a pretty calm person, but was also someone who could really stress the Hell out over some relatively minor stuff. My brother and I jokingly call it gritted teeth communication. Basically, clench your teeth together tightly and just talk normally. Try it. Clench your teeth and say “I told you to pick your clothes up off the floor” or “if that yard isn’t mowed by the time I’m home from work, we’re going to have an issue.” ISN’T IT FUN? Now see if you can change the color of your face from whatever color it is now to fire engine red. It’s all very healthy, very normal style communication skills that Irish Catholics have perfected over a millenia.
All joking aside, he actually was a really calm person and was perhaps one of the most generous and giving people I’ve ever known. He always had the best advice on any number of different topics (both mundane and serious) and of all the things I’ve mourned over the past twenty years, at the top of the list is the ability to just call him and ask him for simple advice on anything and everything. Had a question about buying a car? Call dad. Need some relationship advice? Call dad. Want to diagnose what’s plaguing the Astros (oh, how he would have loved their recent successes)? Call dad. All of that just disappeared over the sound of a laugh track on TV.
The road to heart disease is long, tenuous, and comes with a million different on- and off-ramps. This isn’t about that. Or maybe this is about that. I don’t know. I sometimes fall into the fatalism that comes with geneticism and how heart disease (among other things) runs in families and I live (constantly!) with the fear that “the big one” is in my future, too.
My dad was literally just here one second and then blacked out and dead on the kitchen tile the next. That can fuck with your head if you wrestle with that idea too long. I’ve spent a good portion of the past two decades wondering what kind of end do I want? Do I want to be in some bed somewhere, surrounded by loved ones as I know I’m dying of this thing or that thing (or of old age), or do I want to be watching “Everybody Loves Raymond” and then just fucking be gone. …forever? I hope if it’s the latter, I’m watching a more enjoyable show than “Everybody Loves Raymond.” As I sit here typing this, an episode of “Judge Judy” plays on the TV in the background, so I’m not liking my chances on that. But in the past few years, I’ve logged about 10,000 steps a day while eating relatively healthily, so maybe the fatalism is misplaced anxiety.
Going to end this one here… Figured what better way to get back into writing this month than tackling an easy topic like *checks notes* “Death.” Someone pass me some sheet cake.
An open and shut book 
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