“What did he die from?”

Why does anyone ask that question? No matter the answer, it resolves nothing. Cancer? Horrible. Car accident? Tragic. Suicide? Um. Oh. Gosh.

Suicide is the ultimate buzz kill.

Nine years ago tomorrow, my father took his life in a motel room in Pismo Beach and I still can’t for the life of me make heads or tails of it. I don’t mean I can’t understand why he did it – a history of depression coupled with an unemployment streak and money woes are enough to make the case. What I can’t seem to process is how this decision of his – my father, my mentor – will or will not define the rest of my life, the life of my family. I have spent the past nine years waiting for the grace, to see if some good might slip in through the cracks. And yet, I am as lost as ever for the meaning. All I can see is his absence in every corner of my life. And how I am failing to define his legacy or honor his hopes for me.

What I remember is this: going to lunch with my intended, engaged one month. We have burgers at a café in Los Angeles and our fingers are intertwined, greasy and animated. We are walking out – I can see Chris’ back in my mind and I am following him and his phone rings and we push open the screen door of the restaurant into the sunlight and I hear him say oh god no. Oh god no. We are in front of the restaurant on the corner and it is exactly like it is in the movies: your life falling apart and exploding everywhere and the world walking right by you on their way to the bank, stepping around your mess like a puddle.

We spent the next few days in our apartment and then flew to Monterey to spread my father’s  ashes, which promptly blew back at us in the surf, sticking to the green sweatshirt of his I was wearing. I kept having to dust him off of me. Then we came home and I alternately worked, planned a wedding and laid in my bed reading the letters my father had written me over my lifetime.

He’d always expected more of me, my father. He’d always made me expect more of myself, maybe deluded me into thinking I was special. In the years he’s been gone, I suspect I’ve let down the both of us.

I’d been a mediocre college student, lazy and social. He’d written me then, calling me on it:

First of all, I appreciate the fact that you’re on your own for the first time and it takes a while to get the hang of it. I’m quite sure you’re excited by all your new surroundings. The point is, don’t be a three-legged chair. By that I mean, don’t allow yourself to wind up in the position of relying too heavily on any one thing to support your life’s balance. Try and maintain a broad approach both socially and professionally. It might look as if you have all the time in the world. You don’t. Life has a nasty habit of closing in on you before you have all your ducks in a row. As far as your grades are concerned, I’d almost rather see you flunk out that get average grades. NO ONE EVER SET OUT TO BE AVERAGE! If being average is okay with you at this point, you might as well French fry your hair and get over to Burger King. You did not spend the better part of your life in accelerated educational programs to wind up average. Average sucks! The world has become an average planet and has just about sealed its fate by the acts of average people doing average work. It’s too late to be average, we need excellence and we need it from you. Take a good look around and you’ll notice that everyone is sitting on their fat ass waiting for someone to come along and fix the mess we have created. That isn’t going to happen anytime soon. Geri, it will take people like you, young people with original ideas, to take charge. You have a gift of insight and compassion that enables you to see a bigger picture. You should be taking responsibility of some sort to share your vision of a better world. While it may appear that I’m beating up on you, I’m not. I’d like to get your attention, that’s all. Do what pleases you and be aware of the consequences.

The consequences were a by-the-skin-of-my-teeth college graduation and a career in advertising, neither of which have done much for the planet or its fate. I’m turning 40 in five weeks and I can’t imagine that when he wrote this to me just before my 19th birthday, he was hoping I’d turn out to be the slightly chubby, well-intentioned, mother of two I’ve become – harmless at best. The definition of average, maybe. My “original ideas” tend to be ones that sell a healthcare system or energy drink for one of my advertising clients . The only thing I’m taking charge of is my three-year old, and honestly, there are times I’m not sure who’s winning that battle either.

You have a gift of insight and compassion that enables you to see a bigger picture.

And I know that I do. There is a kernel of a gift still in there. But my picture is so blurry these days between remodeling our little house and working full-time and raising these wonderful children of ours, it’s all I can do to keep our own tiny world of four from spinning off its axis, much less tending to the larger, important world outside our door. And I know the planet needs me, needs us, but it’s all I can do just to get to work on time and not forget what I was supposed to bring to the Kindergarten post-graduation potluck. Was it plates or napkins I signed up for?

Our neighbor Frank, our beloved adopted grandfather, is dying. His wife Heidi says he’s not concerning himself with the inconsequentials anymore, and that we should all live that way, not just when we’re on the way out. And I couldn’t agree more. I don’t want to be a three-legged chair. I don’t want to be missing the big picture. My almost forty year old self has learned that life does have a way of closing in on you and the last thing I want to be thinking when it does is: why didn’t I listen to my father?

Why didn’t I listen to my father?

So, for now, I will take responsibility for my vision of a better world and I will do it like this: I will make lunches for the emergency school for homeless children this month. I will collect swimsuits so every one of them can swim this summer. I will yield the right of way to the old man waiting to cut in. I will smile at people as I pass by them on the street. I will teach my children compassion by example. I will plant our tomato garden and I will make spaghetti sauce from scratch. I will make brownies from a mix and let my six-year old lick the spoon. I will enjoy being the lucky wife to my lucky husband. It’s the bigger picture, in bite-size portions, the only ones I can manage at the moment. And when I can do more, I will.

And I hope by doing all of this Dad, that you will know that I am OK, too. That the world, as cracked and battered as it may be,  has a lot of goodness left in it.  And that even though you left my life, you have not left my heart. And that even though I haven't been excellent, not even close, you were not wrong about me. You were not wrong.