Died on the Fourth of July
Tags: Grief And Loss, Covid Diaries, Narcissism, 4th Of July, Loneliness

Grandpa and Me (1978)

I’ve always hated this holiday. Not for what it stands for. I love my country and god knows I love my freedom. I’m not sure if it was being around crowds of people or my aversion to loud sounds. I can appreciate beautifully choreographed fireworks and well-run events, but the “pop” of fireworks undoubtedly make me jump, even if I was expecting them. Or maybe my detest is due to the proximity of the fourth to my dad’s birthday and anything celebrating his life seemed to bring that pit of guilt and shame piled with even more guilt and self-loathing of wanting to please him. The uncomfortableness of July seems to linger and stifle me in daunting heaviness, and I hate today.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the summer. “The less clothes the better.” I used to say when I was younger and didn’t give a shit about how I looked. I was happy in my delusion of being a skinny girl in the summer. Somehow a tanned body in a tank top and short shorts gave me confidence to flaunt my fat everywhere. Granted, I was thinner than I am now, but I was never skinny. My ex liked to remind me of that while trying to breathe in the hot July sweaty steam of St. Louis. He especially liked to torture me by going for a run around a particular park in his neighborhood — at the height of the mid-days heat. He would run slightly in front of me and make fun of me for stopping. Even if he was tired, hot, and out-of-shape himself. I was on his turf. He grew-up running around that damn park so as with everything else, he exerted himself in his domain.

I guess it is fitting that it was here among the muggy, muddy, miserable, Mississippi that solidified my hatred for this day. My parents had decided the fourth of July was the best weekend for them to travel to St. Louis to meet my ex’s parents. We were set to get married the next year and although I had tried to keep the two worlds from colliding, it was inevitable they would have to meet.

The wedding itself was a contentious arrangement. It was to be in St. Louis instead of Chicago, where we lived, or Ohio, where I grew up. I had no delusions about marriage — given the fucked-up nature of my parent’s relationship and I had never been one of those little girls that dreamed about wearing white and walking down an aisle. Most of my childhood fantasies consisted of working a high-powered job, coming home to a really cool and modern apartment in a city and feeding my dogs (“Feeding” my pound puppies cheerios.) I was often withdrawn and spent most of my time in my room (apartment) separate from my family.

I was content “living in sin” as my religious parents accused and disowned me for moving in with my ex before being married. As if the hypocrisy of being married to a perpetual liar and child molester was void of any sin. It’s amazing what delusion and “forgiveness” will do for a deeply religious, self-centered, and judgmental marriage. “Our” decision to get married was to “make it right” with god … or so we told both families that. In reality, I have no idea why he attached himself to this idea of getting married. Maybe out of his complete narcissism and overall evil plan to control me. Being the good narcissist that he is, it wasn’t necessarily a conscience effort to control me, but as with all artists, he was a master at his craft. At the time neither of his brothers were married and had no prospects of doing so. In wanting to give his mother a wedding to fuss over, this was his idea. She also wanted grandchildren and had purchased every Disney VHS movie in anticipation. As the years wore on and technology advanced, her hopes for either were vanishing quickly. Especially after my ex entered his 30s which made my childbearing years calculable, even if I was younger than him by a few years and irrelevant of my desire to have kids or not. (What should have been clear is none of this fit into my childhood fantasy of solo living in an apartment with dogs.)

The weekend went surprisingly well with both mothers wearing similar outfits they’ve purchased from Kohls. One in seersucker red and the other in seersucker pink. Fucking ridiculous …

My parents were set to fly back to Ohio on the fourth — since my mother reasoned it would be cheaper to fly on the holiday. We had some time to kill before their flight and my ex, being the schmoozer that he is, wanted to show them some of St. Louis. (In our many trips over our twelve years together, he never took me to any places in St. Louis.) We decided to walk around the Galleria, maybe grab some lunch, when my mom got the call. She walked away from the noisy piped-in music and turned her back toward us. In my gut I knew what the call was. We had been waiting for it for weeks. “He’s gone.” She said when she returned. My grandfather was gone. My heart. My soul. You see, I was a grandpa’s girl. Not in the sense that he spoiled me with gifts or attention. He and my grandma treated all of the grandkids equally. I think they both had enough of my mom and aunts and their sibling rivalry, they wanted to make sure we all felt loved, the same. And maybe I wasn’t special to him, but that didn’t change the fact that he was to me. He used to tell this story of when I first arrived in this country. My parents had picked me up from O’Hare airport and had left my older brother with my grandparents. As my grandpa tells it when they arrived, I was fussy, my grandpa scooped me up and said I quieted down right away. I interpret the story that I must have known, even then as a small six-month-old baby, that I was safe with him.

As another fourth of July painfully passes, I once again am reminded by the unrelenting heat and the startling pops of rogue firecrackers on the street, why I hate this holiday. Like the smoldering stench of rotting trash in the days after all of the barbecues and fireworks gatherings, the pain still lingers. I am alone. While I’m not alone in my grief — there are others who mourn him ­– I am alone in the loss of being seen and being known. No one is ever going to love me and see me as he did. Through his eyes, I was innocence, I was joy, I was love. I still long for the safety I felt in his arms and the protection of his presence. This year especially seems like an unbearable weight. With the global COVID-19 pandemic and limits on socialization and the unrest of years of systemic racism, the air is full and close. I can’t breathe …