Losing My Dad, and Then Myself
By Tess Day
The day after my father’s funeral, the country club burned down.
It was situated across the street from my parents’ home, where ladies in pearls brunched and men in crisp white shorts and pastel shirts drove around languidly in golf carts, where teenage girls drank sweet tea and laughed too loudly while lounging by the over-chlorinated pool. Even though we lived near the country club, we were not brunchers or golfers or swimmers. It was just a neighborhood landmark, something I would refer to when giving directions — take a left when you get to the country club, and then your next left.
The night of the fire, I had left to take my then-boyfriend to the airport. He had come down for the funeral, sitting dry-eyed through it, and was now returning to our abandoned life in New York City. He had given me a lukewarm hug and a peck on the cheek, said ‘love you, it’ll be ok’ while not making eye contact and then walked rather quickly through the automatic doors into the airport.
I remember standing there, rooted to the curb, my hazard lights flashing in the cold January night. I knew we were over, our relationship unnaturally extended due to my dad’s terminal illness, but the thought of another ending, another death, immobilized me in every sense. Eventually, the police told me to move along, and I wanted to say, Move along where? There was nowhere I wanted to go except backward.
I saw flames licking the sky when I pulled back into my parents’ neighborhood — the fire engines only just arriving. I was so numb to the world that this sight had almost no effect on me. I didn’t stop to watch it or worry about it spreading. I simply parked my car in my parents’ driveway and went inside.
“The country club is on fire,” I told my mom.
She nodded. “I thought I heard sirens,” she said. After a pause, she added, “That’s too bad.”
And it was all too bad. Too bad in a way that it would take years for us to truly understand, the ripple effect of my dad’s death spreading like the cancer that killed him. The country club — the heart of the neighborhood, that beautiful crown jewel — was now a blackened mess. But it could be rebuilt, stronger and better than before. What about our own internal fires? How could we rebuild that destruction?
I knew we were over, our relationship unnaturally extended due to my dad’s terminal illness, but the thought of another ending, another death, immobilized me in every sense.
It started as a grease fire in the kitchen; no one was hurt. I moved far away, thinking that if I put thousands of miles between my physical self and the geographical place where I had lost my dad, I could keep the sadness at bay. When that didn’t work, I got married. When that wasn’t enough, I had kids. But instead of masking my grief, it just compounded.
I married too quickly after his death, and my marriage struggled. My sons reminded me of all the best parts of my father, from their blue eyes to their kind smiles that would never know their grandfather. I felt torn wide open. Soon, I realized that I hadn’t extinguished anything; that slow burn of his death was still present. I had turned away, looking for an exit, but you don’t get to exit yourself.
Life blazed on, as it always does. My son was diagnosed with autism. My marriage fell apart. I got divorced and sold the house to which I had brought my babies home. I moved back east to be close to my mom, into the same neighborhood I had fled over a decade ago.
When I got there, I saw that the country club had been rebuilt, and it was beautiful.
I now take my children there. In the summer they swim in the pool. We eat with my mom in the spectacular dining room or we run around the playground. The house where my dad died still stands across the street. I don’t tell my sons that’s where it happened.
“What does dead even mean?” my youngest son asks.
I don’t know how to explain death. You’re here one day, and then you’re not. “You go someplace, but your body doesn’t come with you,” I tell him. As an afterthought, I tell him, “He’s in heaven.”
Of course, that means nothing to him. “You mean Kevin,” he tells me. “Not HEAVEN. He’s with Kevin.” For me, now, Heaven will always be Kevin.
He talks about my dad a lot. In his gorgeous, neurodivergent brain, he will hyper-focus on something, and recently, it’s been my dad. When we walk down the sidewalk, he’ll say to people, “My grandpa is dead. But he’s with Kevin!” They’ll give him an alarmed look and keep walking.
A few weeks ago, we were playing at that country club playground. A little boy, no older than four, was going down the slide. He was wearing a bowtie. My son was watching him. “Do you want to go play with him?” I asked. He nodded. “Go say hi,” I urged him.
He walked up to the little boy. “Hi,” he said solemnly. “My grandpa is dead.”
The little boy peered at him for a minute, then he sighed, shaking his little head. “That’s too bad,” he said. They looked at each other for a moment. “Do you want to play chase?” the little boy asked.
And then they ran in circles, happy and laughing, in spite of all the ‘too bad’ things that happen in this world. Maybe we never really put out those internal fires. Maybe, just maybe, instead of burning things down, those flames illuminate our path forward.
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Tess Day is a publishing professional with over ten years of experience in book publicity. She has worked for Penguin, Simon & Schuster, Sasquatch Books, Mountaineers Books, and now serves as Publicity Director for Zibby Books. Tess is passionate about connecting books to readers and promoting authors and their voices through a variety of platforms. A graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, Tess went on to complete the Denver Publishing Institute. She currently resides in North Carolina with her two sons.