My name is Daddy

When I was a little girl I discovered that my dad had a first name, and it wasn't "Daddy". I started calling him Bill and he would insist, "my name is Daddy!" For as long as I can remember, I've called him by his first name. Not exclusively, and not all the time but it has become a joke in our family. He will often sign cards or letters as "my name is daddy". Sometimes I forget that "Bill" isn't what all dads are called, and I'll refer to my father in law by the same name. In my mind, "Bill" means "Dad".

Bill passed away on December 17th. For those who have kept up with our family, my dad was diagnosed with cancer in February; he had a baseball-sized tumour on his liver. Various treatments and medications were tried and he did fairly well for a few months, until he didn't.

We put a death notice in the newspaper, but didn't have an obituary published. I have been wanting to write one here, and I've been working on it but I'm stuck. When I get to the part about listing his family, it gets a little complicated for me. You know the part, where we say so-and-so is survived by a loving wife, daughter, grandchildren...

Survived by... we're not really surviving all that well. Or maybe it would be more fair to say that we're barely surviving. I have been intellectualizing my dad's illness for so long- we've known that this was a possibility for him, and the treatments he received were palliative, so there was not much in the way of hope for him. The question of how long has been looming over us for most of the last year, so it shouldn't have been a surprise. Even so, I find myself shocked and surprised and offended by his death.

Intellectually I've always understood that one doesn't prepare emotionally for a death; we tell ourselves we can, and we think about it and maybe even make plans around it, but there's no way to get ahead of the grieving. I've done plenty of grieving in my life over traumatic events, I think I honestly believed that I wouldn't feel so raw about this because it wouldn't be a surprise. I was sure that because I knew it was going to happen it wouldn't hurt so much. Now I can't even wrap my mind around him being dead. Where is dead? It feels like a place I should be able to get him from, like maybe he just needs a ride home. I'm a really good driver, why can't I just go get him?

Survived by... I don't have biological children so there's not much in the way of posterity, so to speak. Oh, but people love my dad. My husband's family in particular adore him- grand children and great grandchildren, my in-laws. Everyone has embraced my dad so unconditionally and considers him "family".

My parents have these friends, Markus and Patricia, who have become like family with ours. Their little daughters know my dad as "Papa" and he's the only one they have; the love between our families is no less real than if they had been born into ours. I am heartbroken for them, that they won't get to grow up knowing him. He's really good at being a grandpa and I'm angry that they will miss out on that. I'm devastated that my mom has to live without him.

My dad has so many friends who look up to him; guys at work that he has become like a mentor to, people who respect his opinion and look to him for guidance about life.

I don't even have words strong enough to express how much I miss him. His generosity and sense of humour and our shared love of books... I loved talking about books with my dad. He was genuinely interested in my thoughts about books and life and morality. My dad is one of my favourite people in this world, and something like heartbroken rage is seething on my insides and I don't know what to do with it.