A Strange Grieving

I'm in California...But instead of it causing my usual political diatribe, it's bringing back a flood of memories and a wondering about the future of my fatherhood.

Photos by Joe Kingry

In 2009, my dad decided to take all of our family to Legoland in Carlsbad, California. My sister and her husband and their year-old daughter would join my wife and me, along with our four boys, and stay at a timeshare my dad had found across from the park. The timeshare was like all of the others I have stayed at. A little dated. A little worn out. But something amazing happened on that trip. I fell in love with being a dad. I was always happy about my kids, but the baby phase for me always felt a little helpless. My wife had a system, and I was only good at monkeying that up. Yet as this week unfolded, my boys started to move my way. They still needed all the goodies in the strollers that my wife festidiusly packed each morning before we went to the park, but in their moments of fear about roller coasters, or a need for adventure in the castle kingdom, they sought me out. It was the first time I really felt like I was a father, and I fell in love with it.

A few years later, during the height of the economic meltdown in the real estate world, I went on eBay and bought the deed to one of the timeshares in that same complex for a dollar. It was the best dollar I ever spent. We returned to that timeshare year after year, repeating the same patterns of Legoland, Sea World, and the beach. We’d always eat at the same restaurants and go grocery shopping at the same Sprouts Farmers Market grocery store. We made Grand Pacific Pallisades our “second home” once a year. We went so many times that by the time Covid came around, we were almost thankful for the year off.

What I didn’t realize when that terrible moment arrived in our country is how much impact it would have on the acceleration of time in our own family. While we waited for the country to return to some kind of “normal”, my children became young men. In the background, I had the sense the country was on pause, but in the living room of my own home, there was no stopping the inevitable: my little boys were being replaced by fine young men. Covid also changed our pattern of going to California, and before I knew it, I had stockpiled up a bunch of weeks to use at our home resort. So this fall, I called my dad, and mom, and my sister and asked if they would want to go back and use up a few of the extra weeks I had. There was no hesitation, and we are all here, staring out at the great Pacific Ocean. Our minds are all filled with memories of our time here years ago, when our children had high, little voices that laughed and screamed with excitement. The kids have all outgrown Legoland, but they want to go back and see it. So do I.

But in all honesty, when I got up this morning, I was overcome with a strange grief. Not for what is lost, but for what I’ve had the chance to be. The life I have lived is spectacular. These boys of mine are amazing. They are bright and thoughtful. They care for others and have incredible futures ahead. And while that makes me thrilled for them, I have a sadness I cannot explain. I have always been cursed by a deep sentimentality about life. From the earliest age I can remember, my memories are like photographs. Easily recallable and as vivid as if they were in 4k digital. I cry easily when I think about old friends or loved ones who have gone. So today, when I saw the ocean in the morning sunlight, I felt an overwhelming sentimentality about what has passed before me. It’s irrational, but I always felt I had more time. I thought that this season of fatherhood would last forever, but I have been jarred into the reality that it will not. My oldest boys are not with us. School and obligations made traveling for them this week feel very irresponsible. So one is at home working on his schoolwork and his upcoming theater production, and the other is in Boston, preparing for his next concert and midterms.

I won’t ever hear those little voices again, and in even typing that, my eyes well up. I am sure there will be new things: grandparenthood, life with my wife, but whenever anyone asks if I am excited for that next season, I bristle a little. I have loved being a dad to these boys in the fullness of their lives. So I don’t look into the horizon and think about how much fun it will be to have a “little time to myself” again. Everything I have done, both in work and personal pursuits, has been about bettering the lives of these boys. I have no interest in “finding myself” in some new version of personal happiness. The boys have made me happy. Being a dad has been the best adventure, fulfilling in every way and imbued with unspeakable gratification.

Others who are older will assure me that things will be better and that the relationships with your kids will just become something different. But goodness, do I miss the little buzz cuts and the rubber faces. I miss catching them as they jump off the side of the pool. I miss holding their tiny hands as we walk across the park to the next Lego-themed ride. I say it’s a strange grief, because I never want to say that what today is, is lesser. I don’t want them to feel funny about growing up or changing. They can’t change it, just as I couldn’t change my own when I was their age. Their world is filled with promise and new adventures that they will lean into and thrive in. But my role will be from a distance, and that makes me sorrowful. When they were little, it felt overwhelming. It was a daily tornado of little socks, apple sauce packets, and Buzz Lightyear toys. At times, my wife and I would collapse into bed at the end of the night, exhausted from trying to keep the ship afloat. But if someone asked me to trade all the money and assets I have to hit the reset button to start it all over, I would take that trade. I would go back in an instant to putting little shoes on their feet and packing strollers so full of the gear we needed for the day that we looked like the Okies in Grapes of Wrath.

In my most honest moments, I am not quite sure what I am to become. I have defined my life by being their dad, and the grief of that impending change, at times, makes me feel like it is too great a burden to bear. It’s wholly foolish to think that life would end when they leave, but from this horizon, it can feel that way. The grief of this new direction manifests itself in ways I never thought possible. I don’t know what it will look like, and in this moment, I actually am not all that interested in trying to look for the bright spots about what might be around the corner. I will get there, I am certain of it, but this morning, staring out over the view I have come to love, I will embrace a bit of the sadness and melancholy for the benefit of what grieving can add to the humanity of any experience.

I will miss this for the rest of my life, but I will forever be thankful for what we had. It was beautiful and magical. I’ll shed more tears yet this week, and that will help in some way to cleanse the hurt of the loss.

It’s a strange grief.