Everything happens for a reason ... sort of

My dad: He got cooler later in life, but not much.

My dad's been dead for half my life, and it really, really sucks.

It goes without saying. Or, at least, it should. But it never seems to, does it? "Time heals." "You're stronger for it." "Everything happens for a reason."

No, no, no. Especially the last one. Everything happens for a reason? Please. My father did not leave this life, extremely prematurely, for any reason. Or at best, as the result of stupid, pointless events. Still, nearly everyone, since the day he died, seems to want to tell me it happened "for a reason." The wost offenders usually include some variation of "Don't worry; everything sorts itself out" along with the platitude.

Before you think I'm a horrible, horrible person who secretly hates all your comforting words, let me explain. I do take comfort in the fact that so many people care, still, after all this time, and that's the main thing. So thank you, truly. However, I think it's more comforting to not assume reason and direction. I prefer to find it, or better, to make it.

If my dad hadn't died, I probably wouldn't have taken the precise career path I had, I wouldn't be married to my husband, and owing to the circuitous interconnectedness of things, my son probably wouldn't exist. Really, everything does affect everything that comes after it in one's life, to some degree or another. But you can go crazy assigning meaning like that. He didn't die so that these things could happen. He lived, and with my mom raised me, so that they could happen.

I honestly don't usually remember the anniversary of when my father died. I always remember his birthday. He lived for a reason, and it had nothing to do with predestination or guiding spirits. He lived for the reasons that he created every day. He was a father, son, husband, brother, teacher, coach, fantasy baseball commissioner, unabashed Beach Boys and Jim Croce lover, sarcastic joke teller, conservative, and pain in the ass. He did what he did, and to hell with anyone else and their idea of cool. (See that photo at the top? I never again want to hear you say "Oh, yeah, my family is full of dorks too," unless it reaches that level of dorkitude. I mean, seriously.) He was a whole ton of other things. And none of it just happened. He was, determinedly and perpetually, the reason.

He was never big-time into nature, but I am. Yesterday, I was chasing birds. It was early enough that the date hadn't really registered. After an hour or two of attempted birding, miles and miles off course, I pulled to a stop beside his baseball field. Yesterday would have been his 53rd birthday.

The birds didn't guide me there. There wasn't a mystical force pulling me. I probably already remembered in the back of my mind what day it was. But it has meaning anyway. It happened for a reason, and by "it" I mean my recognition of the moment. I assigned meaning to the moment. I couldn't stop smiling, all the way home. The radio seemed to play the most pleasingly cheesy songs I'd heard in ages, and I thought of him as I bellowed along with the lyrics.

I returned to the field last night with my son. We brought crayons; paper; cameras; a really old, really dorky photograph; and an old clarinet.

David plays the clarinet now, and that certainly happened for a reason. One other thing that my dad was was a clarinet player, and a good one (his failed attempts at circular breathing notwithstanding). My son now plays his old clarinet. I couldn't possibly be prouder. David played the clarinet at Brian Hosey Field, we did some rubbings of the plaque, and he ran and ran around the field until he could barely breathe and the light had faded entirely.

My father, whatever and wherever else he may or may not be, most definitely lives on through us. He's behind my humor, love, aggravation, creativity, strengths, and weaknesses. It really has been a while now. We have, of course moved on, if not gotten "over" anything. I'm honestly startled sometimes to realize it's been days and days since I've really thought about him. And then I stop. And breathe. And think. And maybe write; or sing, loudly and badly; or read a stupid comic book; or vociferously argue a point about which no one cares. No one tells me to. No one makes me do it. Possibly, no one's watching over me. I choose to do what I do. But he did teach me.

He didn't die for a reason, but he's gone, and we deal. It's made a little easier by the fact that he lived for so many reasons, and we nurture those every day.

Happy (belated) birthday, Dad

I tried and tried yesterday to think of a fitting post to do for what would have been my dad's 51st birthday. I did one last year, and was thinking of him all day. But nothing. Well, not nothing, exactly. Fits and starts. I wrote a bit here and there about how he lives on through me in unexpected ways, how he chose "favorite" baseball players whose cards my brother and sister and I would "collect" (starting in infancy; my "favorite" was Keith Hernandez). I scribbled down a list of random quotes I remembered from him:

On religion: "I'm Catholic, but that doesn't mean I agree with everything the Pope or the priest does. It's like being an American. If you agree with everything the President does and don't even question it, you're a pretty lousy American."

On buying ten cartons of ice cream: "Well, it WAS on sale."

On an argument with my mom: "Well, sometimes we do argue. We love each other, and we'll be fine by tonight ... but I am right."

On my mom deliberately ruining his eggs (because he deserved it): "That's fine. I LIKE them this way."

On my mom and I arguing: "Well, I think you're both being a little ridiculous!"

On our response: "..." [Retreat.]

On my mom revealing, after months, that she'd switched the brand name for a generic: "Well, yeah. I figured that out right away. I just didn't say anything."

On political affiliations: "Well, you're Republican. We're Republican. Obviously."

After a huge fight once: "You should know something. You and you mom. You're my heroes. You've changed me more than you'll ever know."

But I couldn't wrap it up, tie it to anything. Because I am my dad for better or worse, including my short attention span, propensity to procrastinate and my devotion to my kid. So I tried in two- and three-minute spurts, and nothing. How do you commemorate someone you're already constantly commemorating in your life and thoughts? I talked to my mom twice yesterday and it occurred to me I had forgotten to say anything. But what do I say? Happy Dad's birthday? Probably, I guess. But that seemed inadequate, somehow, which was the same problem that I had with everything I tried to write. So sorry, Mom. Definitely, Happy Dad's birthday.

My son and I went through old pictures last night, and we found some old pictures of my dad and me. (I'll scan them in and add them to this post later today.) My son, without really looking at them at first, saw the kid and the postures and immediately assumed it was me and him.

And then we went for a walk, and saw this amazing pink and red sky.

David knew what day it was. The world knew.

I guess I'll end with a conversation David and I had last night. It was prompted by a book (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban), which seems more than fitting.

"Harry must be sad his mom is dead."

"Yeah. I'm sure he's very sad."

"Like, when he wonders what to do, and wants to ask her, and she's not there."

"That would be really hard. He just has to do his best. And he has the memory of her."

"But why does the memory make him happy? Doesn't it make him sad that she's gone?"

"Well, of course he's sad. But I guess Harry's happy because the memory is kind of like him, I mean her, still being there. And when Harry needs advice or love, Harry can still think about what he would have said."

"I'm not talking about his dad. We already talked about that."

"I mean she. What she would have said."

"You miss your dad, huh?"

"Yeah. I do, sweetie."

Happy Birthday, Dad

My dad would have been fifty today.

Actually, I'm ashamed to say I didn't remember this until partway through the morning. Yesterday was a mad dash of writing, revising, driving, waiting, mailing, writing, submitting, driving, waiting, driving some more, writing some more, speaking, teaching, learning, and more driving. (I also managed to squeeze in time to read a Magic Tree House book to my son, wash some urine-soaked Superman sheets, engage in an overly long tickle fight at his behest, and have a spirited debate on whether I will or will not purchase any more frickin' Kid Cuisine meals if a certain person only eats the smallest portion of each.) Tomorrow is likely to be more of the same, and by this time next month I will need to have reached some pretty significant milestones that I'm not sure I can reach. So this morning was more of an in-between, a respite. I wrote, but not as feverishly. I took my son to school. I answered a few e-mails and received my daily dose of frustration that comes from speaking to a particular editor. I noticed that the grackles in town seem to have learned to use a local crosswalk, and resolved to write a short piece about it. And then I typed the date on a document. February 28, 2008. Wow.

Today my dad would have been fifty.

This June 30, he'll have been gone thirteen years.

In ten years, I'll be as old as he was when he died.

That second figure startles me the most, actually. Thirteen years. That's almost half my life, yet it seems as if it's only the tail end of my time-on-Earth-so-far that has been spent without him.

Apparently, I'm not the only one. In third grade, I got my dad in a bit of hot water for repeating this joke to my teacher (his coworker):

"Hey! You know why a pool table is green?"
"No. Why?"
"You'd be green too if someone was knocking your balls around all day! Bwahaha!"

A few years ago, I was stopped by a school counselor I hadn't seen in ages. "Did you hear the one about the pool table?" she asked immediately. Apparently it's now part of school-district lore.

But it was because of who it came from, though I'd dearly love to take credit for my stand-up-comedy prowess at an early age. My dad was so many things to so many people: a father, husband, coach, community organizer, teacher... I could go on. But his memory and legacy deserves far more than to be reduced to a eulogy or annual tribute. He'd likely be telling me now to wrap it up, or maybe to tell the one about the dwarf at the circus.

My dad is responsible for so much of who I am. My determination. My love of reading. My stubbornness. (My mother will call me "Brian" on occasion, when she's contending with some bull-headed, unbending stand of mine. I choose to take it as a compliment, although this may not be the effect she's going for at the time.) My total inability to sing, but total love for it. My style of expressing opinions (though not all my opinions, which made for some, um, enthusiastic communiques between my father and me). My overly thorough knowledge of baseball stats and Marvel comics. Pretty much all the mathematical knowledge I ever acquired. The only way of looking at religion and faith that has ever made sense to me.

I could go on. Even my writing comes from him, and though he never pursued publication, I'd venture to say he'd have far surpassed any of my meager efforts. Here's a piece he wrote as a high school senior, of which I keep a copy, tattered from reading and re-reading:

Sphinx Day

Awaking in a foreign world,
Pulling off eyelid blankets.
Crawling and groping through early morn,
New sensations thrilling the infantile mind.

Rose petals are his playmates,
Eternity his backyard.
Dressed in his mother's branches,
This new, strange creature called Youth.

Morning leaves, and youth follows,
A mature afternoon creature comes.
The rose petals are scattered,
Like so many problem seeds.

Standing upright and proud, so proud,
Not looking back to morn,
Nor gazing ahead to night,
This independent afternoon, manhood.

Now manhood becomes aged,
Back to Mother he goes.
A cane gives him three legs,
And this life day sees its end.

The sun goes down on life,
Age has dreams of morning and noon.
Night comes on, final enveloping,
And these dreams become sleep.

My dad was known for things. And even when the thing itself wasn't good, somehow he'd turn it into an endearing eccentricity, a positive. Case in point: his singing. He could read music forward and backward, and played the clarinet beautifully, and he liked to sing ... but I don't think anyone has had the same odd combination of talent in music and total lack of vocal cord cooperation (though the torch of singing passion-with-suckitude has been passed on to me). It's a standing joke in our family; we have only to hum the smallest snippet the song Gloria in Excelsis Deo! to send each other into waves of eye-rolling laughter. This is because my sister and I remember Dad belting out the song in Mass as if it were being sung by a reverent, overzealous, slightly neurotic Santa Claus: "Glo! Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho, Ho-ho-ho-ho-ho, Ho-ho-ho-ho-hooooor...ria!"

We remember him scrunching up his long face until it was all lines, pretending he can hit the high notes in a Beach Boys tune.

There are countless other memories, too, as I'm sure there always are with good fathers. I remember reading and re-reading a twenty-year-old copy of A Wrinkle in Time, remembering how my dad and I read and re-read it all summer one year, just to see how it came together.

I remember this awful thin, gaudy, too-tight red and yellow T-shirt he had, emblazoned with "He who dies with the most toys wins," with actual toys (he managed a toy store before becoming a teacher). He'd wear it with even more awful too-short shorts. My mom happened to lose these types of clothes with startling regularity, which was odd because she never lost anything else.

My dad's legacy was one of fascination, humor, total abandon, willingness to look silly. It was unabashed wonder.


David wants to know as much as he can learn about my father, his grandfather. Today I took my son to the Four Peaks Elementary School softball field, named Brian Hosey Field in honor of my father. We were the only ones there. My son walked over to the sign honoring my dad, felt the raised lettering. We talk quite a bit about his grandpa and how proud he would be of his grandson. David read the sign a few times -- he can read now, something about which I'm sure my dad would be particularly pleased -- turned on the balls of his feet, and ran with total abandon over the field. He coerced me to run too, and we ran until we were both winded. We collapsed on the field, and just laid there for a long moment.

We came home, made some ridiculously rich brownies, and I left the room to get a few things done. From the living room I hear this:

"Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you; Happy Birthday dear Grandpa; Happy Birthday to you."

And then: "Mom, when am I going to be old enough to watch X-Men?"

My dad lives on.

And I know he would appreciate this: on the way home, my son asked me, "Mom, what are huevos?"
"What, sweetie?"
"I heard someone say this morning that he has huevos grande. What does that mean?"
"Uh ... eggs. Big eggs."
"Oh. Like at breakfast?"
"Yep."
"OK. Because I asked the recess teacher what huevos grande were, but she just said it was time to go inside."

The one about the pool table can't be far behind.