Wow…over two years(?!?) since my last live post here!
So many drafts and thoughts and partial posts and intended-to-posts and such.
Today–June 30–mere hours beyond the 4 1/2 year mark since Dad. On this side of that mark, now headed toward the ‘holiday cluster half’ of the year, and Dad’s birthday, and…the 5 year mark.
5 years…that’s half a decade.
That’s old enough for conscious memories that persist–asking Mom in the kitchen in Detroit “Will I ever be 5 again?”
That’s long enough for massive changes in life, situation, circumstance, and so on.
In the 1980s, that was the length of time the Legion of Super-Heroes jumped ahead.
And probably most significantly (to ME) in the usual over-thinking/inner-thinking/way MY mind goes…Five Years is the time the Companions of the Lance spent apart, travelling the world of Krynn, before reuniting at the Inn of the Last Home in Solace.
I first discovered Dragonlance in 1995, with this first novel–Dragons of Autumn Twilight. I was 14 at the time. Five years…was more than a THIRD of my ENTIRE LIFETIME at that point. I had NO frame of reference in my own actual, lived experience for having an established friend group, spreading out across the land for five years and then reuniting at the end of that time-span.
And now, here I sit in 2026, 45 1/2 years old, and headed at that slide onward to 5 years…since losing my Dad.
I’ve been volunteering with Griefshare for a couple years now, after attending for several sessions prior. Last night we talked about “secondary losses”–those losses associated with someone you lost, but beyond that actual person. Secondary losses may include the loss of a confidante, loss of the person that took the trash out, loss of one’s encourager, one’s example, and so on. Countless things. And they can be both immediate and future.
Specifically, it came to me last night that among other secondary losses, I lost the opportunity to get to see my parents retired and traveling. To get to see them revisit Branson, or various New York travels, or just WHERE EVER they would decide to go. To make memories.
And then ultimately, to get to come back and share them with me.
I’m facing stuff with an ex-employer that I can’t help but wonder at Dad’s thoughts on. I know how I feel, and at least some of MY internal motivations. I wonder if Dad would agree, and/or what he’d advise, and so on.
I know that this situation is looking unlike anything I’ve ever faced or taken on before in my life; and I have to wonder if I’d feel so strongly if Dad was still here, or how his continued presence would influence my course.
Finally–and it just popped back into my memory as I sit here typing this post–I’m re-hit at something Dad had said, I believe it was around this time in 2021 (5 years ago…) when he was talking about some of the realities of things going on, and musing, and whatnot.
“If I could live five more years…”
So here we are. After Dad fell in April 2017, that evening I got home from work and found him laying on the floor by the kitchen…that could have been it. Just over 4 1/2 years after that, we celebrated Dad’s 71st birthday, which he proclaimed to be his best one ever, spent with me and Mom, going out to eat, and just being together.
…two months later, he was gone.
Now again 4 1/2 years later…that’s stirred up some other thoughts/emotions/feelings that I certainly did not plan on unearthing when I started typing tonight.
The Life of Walt 