Auld Lang Syne

This anxiousness is new. December 31st. The waiting as the hours tick onward, obliviously, obediently, without remorse, into another year. Another January. A year is closing behind us. A year in which my dad existed. For twenty-two days, but still. He breathed. He napped. He spoke. He gummed down low-sodium pulled pork sandwiches delivered on hospital trays.

Ushering in 2019 feels like another loss. My dad’s left us already, but tonight at midnight, we—my family and I—will leave him. We’ll all awake tomorrow morning, the pillowcase damp with drool, the mattress warm, the sheet rucked, the silver sun beneath the shade—and we’ll toast frozen waffles and swirl our coffee with milk. But, a door will have closed in the night, one that he cannot follow us through. Not really. Not in the flesh. And I can’t help but feel like I’m somehow betraying him.  

It’s an odd journey, this calendar of grief, marking time, fighting the distance that you both need and resent, in order to move forward. I was dreading this day more than the holidays, more than the anniversary of his passing just on the horizon. Perhaps it’s the finality of it. I know he isn’t coming back. I’ve known that for a while now. I think I even knew that when he was still alive, but so diminished from disease that he turned to shadow. But, tonight. Tonight is a punctuation mark.

There’s something about reaching the end of the calendar year, sealing all our baggage inside a tidy box and sending it off in the explosion of fireworks, buzz of noisemakers, and showers of confetti. We guzzle Prosecco and recite a 230-year old Scottish poem and drink to times long past, to old friends. We count down from ten and magically our load is lightened. We seduce the coming year with promises of being a better wife, a more patient mother, a more doting daughter. We vow and fantasize and throw out the stale Christmas cookies. We stop cursing for a day and buy yoga pants. We put down our smart phones and read a book. We splurge on flowers in the winter. We light a $38 candle. Because why not? 

We get our tabula rasa. A clear conscience. A new start. Except.
Except for the years when January 1st seems more like an end.

Dad, oh how I wish you could come with us...

Even if just for auld lang syne.
Even if only for twenty-two days.