Answering the Call

“My grief lies all within,
And these external manners of lament
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortured soul”
--Shakespeare

Five years ago, June 30 fell on a Saturday too. The night before I "inadvertently" called my parent’s home phone – I was trying to reach some friend. Who? I can’t really remember. But I mistakenly punched in "mom and daddy" in my contact list. My daddy answered, awoken from his slumber, his temperature already spiked, no doubt Death already making a bed for him at the Inn. The disorientation would happen later on Saturday, the disorientation that would prompt my mom and dad to say, "Something is not right." But my daddy answered the phone and I had one last conversation with him that went pretty much like this: “Oops! Hi Daddy! (giggle) Did I wake you? I meant to call (so-and-so). So sorry!” What I can’t remember is if I said "I love you." I often said "I love you." I hoped I did that time. I’m afraid I probably didn’t. But I just don't know. That same cell phone would be tucked away in my purse the next night, June 30. Me, oblivious to its constant ring over the evening, my family's repeated calls to tell me, "Something is not right." When I finally stumbled home I was able to retrieve the messages and talk to my brother and imagine that haunting image of my daddy, the protector, the funniest man alive, lying in a hospital bed, glazed eyes, hooked up to a respirator with no jokes to tell. I laid on my bed bargaining with...someone, waiting for my daddy to call me. After what felt like hours with no word, but was probably more like 10 minutes, I dialed my mom's number, my brother's number...No one was answering their phones....Five years later, I still wonder if that "no cell phone policy in hospital rooms" meant that my phone call attempts conflicted with the respirator's frequency that just couldn’t pump life back into him anymore. That one phone that got through to him the night before.

Doppelgangers...Real, Imaginary...Find Them On The Internet (or Whole Foods)

I’m obsessed with this idea of doppelgangers lately. My intro into what exactly is a doppelganger was care of a Lifetime movie starring Melissa Gilbert (Half Pint! times 2! And I’ve left the joke book on that one at home, folks. Fill in your own punchline). I guess in true definition – and what the movie projected – a doppelganger is a shadow-self that only the self can see…so it has mystical or spiritual, namely devil-backed, connotations – as evil incarnate, a portent to death, etc. But in keeping with the light and fluffy and spreadable (and off the horror screen and any kind of Witch’s Brew), my definition of a doppelganger is merely a resemblance of oneself (either in spirit, characteristic, or physical form). And since I believe that all living creatures are inherently good and redeemable, my mind, wander as She may, can not go THERE, devil boy.

So doppelgangers are gooooood.

For example, when I say someone is a doppelganger of someone I used to date, I am inferring that the named doppelganger is actually perhaps the Good Twin because he is not tainted by the Past and Whimsy of the particular Copy, who was merely posing as the Original. As it relates to guys I have dated (read: Past, Unwanted), the doppelganger is the essence of what this person SHOULD have been or what I imagined him to be. (Who said Imaginary Boyfriends weren’t acceptable? I don’t think Dr. Phil has touched this one.) So I might build this Unknown Twin up to what should have been. So you know what happens next? Cyber-stalking is in order, Webbers! Because I really have to give him more context than: the Asst Manager at Whole Foods, in Chucks, who looks like Pompadour with a better hair cut. I like to call it: Dating at a Distance. I would argue that this is actually healthier, Heartbreakers and Breakees.

But let me expound on one obsession at a time.

I vaguely remember years ago someone claiming to know my dad from somewhere. “He looks just like you, everything about you.” Well, there was no way in hell these people knew each other unless my daddy had a double life and appeared at dinner every single night of my life growing up as a hologram. (What's good for Elvis is good for my daddy. But he shouldn't have to suffer Celine. I'm just saying.)

I tuck that way as my daddy having a doppelganger. And if anybody should be cloneable, it shouldn’t be a cow named Dolly, but it should have been a Pollack named Ski. And this is not After Death or In Retrospect talk – or Polish propaganda. (For that I would just say: Go stuff a sausage. Pass the pigs. And fly the Polish flag.) So I find myself looking for my dad wherever I go. Sometimes I just imagine what it would be like to see him walking down the street - looking lost, of course, because he can’t find us - as me, my brother, my sister, and my mom all live at new addresses, new cities…new states, even. Perhaps it is unhealthy and too psychologically-revealing to tell you that a huge factor in why I stayed renting at my old place for so long – was so he could find us. To flash the sanity card and stave the straight jackets, I will tell you that I mean that in the spiritual sense. And it is also why I don’t understand why people wouldn’t want an open casket funeral (unless gruesome circumstances demand not) because I had to see his body otherwise I would never have believed that he just didn’t exist in this world anymore. And, y’all, it took me a long time to actually say it like that: exist in this world. Because, doubters, and I was one of them, there has got to be a silver lining to death – there has to be. So keep a girl hopeful and don’t tell me otherwise.

While I have never seen his doppelganger, per se, I do see my dad in people – not as in "i see dead people" see, mind you - it might be in an expression, emotion, a look. An indescribable. Recently, I’ve seen him in a baggage handler at Raleigh International. I’ve seen him in a guy on House Hunters. And in a saxaphonist in Wynton Marsalis' band. All these people looked nothing like him, yet, there was something familiar. Even he has seen a dopelganger. I remember one time sitting on a bar-chartered bus (bar to ballpark, ballpark to bar, because that is how he rolled) coming back from a Chicago Cubs game and him talking about this old lady sitting a few rows ahead of us. He thought she, eerily, reminded him of his mom: my dear grandma, who incidently died too young too. I wondered what it was about her that got his mind wandering There. But now I know, you never let it go. It's impossible to forget. You wonder (and you wander). But you can change your address because he will be everywhere, if nowhere.

So, seeking out doppelgangers….it keeps me believing, see?

An off-shoot of this theme (that try as I might to steer otherwise, brings this back to dating blog material), is lately I have been seeing double of Pompadour. That guy in the pool in Vegas. That guy walking over the Key Bridge last week. The manager at Whole Foods. Hell, in Blakissey even! And why? The shoes? The hair? An expression? An Indie Posturer? I have let IT go because I have had the "he's just not that into you" kick in the ass and puddles of tears that I just can not go through AGAIN. But yet...there he is. But this He is the Good Twin. In theory, at least. And in Whole Foods. Hey, they can't all be corporate cowboys.

And so, where does cyber-stalking fit into this? Yeah, well, I'll just say, I'm good at my job, which equates to: finding information. And, it sometimes seeps into my personal life. It's like the porn star who likes it dirty at home too. It's not just all there in your briefcase or your crotchless panties, it's in your blood. That is why you do what you do and you do it good.

So let me show you how this works.

I'm doing some grocery shopping, trying to mind my own damn business, and I see this guy with dark, shaggy hair lingering somewhere between Organic and Recycled - or Romanticized and Doppelganging, in the Land of Writerly Metaphors where Cheese most always abounds. Can't. Help. It. So this is all I know about him: He works in Whole Foods, wears an apron, and roams the aisles. One time near Dairy. And one time near Yoga Supplies. That's all we know, kids. Not even a name. Well, that was 2 hours ago. Because what I just did was this:

1. I went to the Whole Foods homepage.
2. I just took a wild guess that he could be the Assistant Manager, soley based on name, which is a cute boy name and my very first, 3d grade boyfriend's name who showered me with his sister's stuffed animals.
3. I googled him.
4. Common name so I googled my neighborhood with his name.
5. I found a myspace page to confirm.
6. I never said library science was rocket science.

From which I learned: He is from a southern town I think is pretty cool, he write/plays music, he blogs on his page and is a great, witty, insightful writer, and he loves his job. See? That right there tells you that he is the Good Twin of Pompadour (or, as I like to call him now, G-Top). This unknown blows the reality away. And I'd like to stop right there because this is a guy I could "stalk." You know, if that was part and parcel to being a Cool Chick. But then I also found this out: He drives an Xterra, goes on three week hiking trips, and has a girlfriend who doesn't shave her armpits. Alright, let's go back to the beginning -and add that to the mix now...he loves working at Whole Foods. See? There might be a crunch to G-Top's step which might not match up to the clicking of my heels. He might not be the closet rocker I desire.

So I will continue to scan the doppelganger lineup. Believing. I think I'm getting very comfortable being alone. Accepting it even.

And in topic and for the subscribers at home: If Brad Pitt's doppelganger were writing a blog, it might go like this.

My Momma Dearest

Switching gears for a Hallmark moment. It's got to be done.

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This Friday, June 30th, will mark the fourth anniversary of my dad's death. I will spend that day(s) with my mom and we will do "dad" things. It's our little ritual and I couldn't imagine spending the day any other way. My dad was a dear, sweet - not to mention hilarious - father and I feel blessed for that. The memories of that weekend haunt me and I guess in a way I still struggle with the loss. But time does put distance and soften the blow.

So on this anniversary I want to pay tribute to my momma. I am blessed to have her in my life as my mom and as my friend. I feel like she sometimes gets lost in the shuffle of our own grief - our own lives. My mom as an independent woman, living her life on her own - while it is something my parents raised me to be, it is just not something she knew herself. I struggle with this too. The picture of my mom carrying all her suitcases and travelling alone or driving off all by herself is part of my grief.

..............

As a child she was sheltered. Her parents sent her to an all girl Catholic school. Her mother made most of her decisions for her, up to and including what she would major in while attending college. It was a traditional household. Father worked hard and came home to awaiting slippers and a newspaper and Mother did the child rearing. It was a loving household, but not an expressive one.

She saw herself through her mom's eyes.

And then she met Val. The night she met him, she knew he was The One. There was something about him. And they couldn't be more opposite. He was wild. She was more reserved. He was a partier. She had the occassional party. He was the life of the party. She was the heart of the party.

Even though she was on a date with another, he confidently asked her out for a spin in his brand new 1967 Corvette. She gushed just a little. And they went out. You knew it was love when she insisted he put the top up because she just got her hair done and he obliged her - his first day in the car. His first day under her spell. They married eleven months later.

She saw herself through his eyes.

They had three children. The children grew up in the center of their world. Together they sacrificed so much so that their kids could have the best education, the best clothes, the best friends, and the best times. They provided a loving, supportive, and expressive home. The children always felt their love and lived by their example.

To raise her family, she gave up her dreams of becoming a nurse. But she has helped people heal throughout her life. She is warm and inviting and people are automatically drawn to her. She is interested in people as individuals. It is easy to see. And she has many friends because of this.

What she doesn't realize is how strong she is. She has always lived her life dependent on others. First, her parents, then her husband. She happily took on this role. But her years of dependency flipped suddenly - unexpectedly - in one fateful night when she lost Him - the love of her life - and had to make the phone calls to the children.

"He's gone. He's gone."

She says she doesn't know what to say in troubled times, she says that He was the one who knew what to say. But she said the only words she could.

Her children showed her how to pump gas and work the ATM machine and drive on the highway. Her brother helped her figure out her finances. And she put together funeral arrangements with poise and grace. She showed everybody how to heal by just being herself. Completely selfless.

Now she stands on her own two feet. She never had the confidence before. She was always grounded by love. Her children settled into their own lives with their own families and she set out on a new future for herself. Very different from what she imagined. Very different from what she wants. But she is finding a new way to live.

I know that she still cries herself to sleep many nights. I know that she keeps his slippers by the bed. I know that she wears his and her rings. I know that she talks to him. I know that she misses him every single day.

I want to punch the Well-Meaning People who insenstively speak, "I don't know how you do it. If [love of my life] died I just don't think I could go on." It's called Life people and it never goes the way you exactly want it to and you can rue the why all the live long day. But in the end, you are still here for a reason and so you live it the best way you know - the only way you know how. Even if you have to re-learn it.

I bet she would never think that she was strong and willful. But she is. She was the pillar that held up her family after this tragedy. Her selfless example inspires. And if you believe in the soul then I know that my daddy is proud of her too.

Maybe that is why he went first. Maybe he would not have been able to find a way.

So now she has entered the phase of Independent Linda. I hope that she will find peace with this.

I hope she will see herself through my eyes.