**I think of the randomest things in the shower.** A few days ago my friend Lauren was in here, and in the course of the conversation i made some kind of joke about my dad, and she said the same thing that aaron meadows said four years ago, "you're not sorry about it, are you". the deja vu was stunning, really. obviously lauren realized quickly that she'd said something wrong. wendy responded that neither of us really liked our dads, and i agreed, at the time. yes that's the case and no it's not, and maybe i do give off that impression sometimes, but humor has always been the way i deal with things. i got my humor from him. i know he'd understand.

the hard part is that i can't really explain it all to her, or to almost anyone else. i could talk and talk and talk and still i would feel like they wouldn't understand, couldn't understand. they didn't know him. i would have to form his entire life with my words and i don't know if i can draw that picture accurately, enough to show what kind of a man he was, his flaws and his strengths, the way he loved his family, the stresses and disappointments he faced, the way he couldn't deal with it all. i could never tell anyone all the jokes he used to make, how funny he was, how sometimes me, him and jen would just sit at the dinnertable after we'd finished and just pass the time laughing at each other. i can't explain all the rage and the anger i felt, the helplessness when he and my mom fought, how desperately i wanted things to get better. i can't show it all, and without the whole picture there's just no way to understand why i feel the way i do.

i shouldn't be angry that people assume things like this about me. i know i'm hard to read. this is one of those areas where only my friends back home really understand. i doubt in the future i'll ever be able to make other people really get it. they weren't there with me. they didn't have all those long conversations that i had with sara and rae and heather those first few years, when i was coming to terms with things, when i relied on them so much whether i knew it or not. sara perhaps most of all understands, not only because she lost her dad, but because she knew my dad, she saw a few of his angry shouting rages (remember the time with the blueberries in the den?). it makes more sense to her. she knows that i'm sorry, and i am, so very sorry, for more things than i can ever enumerate.

the irony of it is that despite all the anger and resentment that so many people around me have towards their families and their parents (rae, lauren, meredith, wendy, andrew), it's not over for them. it's OVER for me and my dad, forever. i will never have the chance to know him or to apologize, and he will never have the chance to know me, to explain himself, to make up for when he hurt me and jen and mom with the things he said or the way he acted. no matter how infinitesmally small, there is always the chance that one day lauren's mom or meredith's dad will wake up and realize all the shit they've done and seek to make amends. even if it can't be done, even if those wounds can never be completely healed, there's still a little light of hope. maybe it'll happen ten years from now, maybe on their deathbeds, maybe never. never wish that your parents would die, no matter how much you think you hate them. death creates as many problems as it solves, and it robs you of any chance at all to have things turn out differently. i might have hated my dad for years if he'd lived, but i would have someday had the opportunity to truly know him.

there are days when i would sacrifice everything to have him back, knowing the cost, knowing the freedom i would lose and the resentment that might return, just to get back that tiny spark of hope, just to be able to tell him i love him one more time. those are the days i sit at my computer, typing and crying, remembering him and then thinking of what i can't remember, what i've lost, trying to hear the sound of his voice over the clicking of keys, and failing. if you think i'm not sorry, you have no idea. for your sake i hope you never do.