Two months ago...

Two Months Today

by Nicholas Andrian on Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 12:18am

Father passed on Jan. 17, exactly two months ago. That Sunday, I drove down to my sister's to see him. He was lying quietly, breathing deeply but without difficulty. He had a good pulse in his neck and I told Debbie that I thought he still had at least a week or two to go. I kissed his forehead before leaving at around five p.m. My sister called later that night to say that he had passed at 11:20 p.m....I had told father in recent years that after he was gone, I would not be able to hear the song "Oh, My Papa" for a long time without getting choked up. That was a huge #1 song by singer Eddie Fisher (Carrie Fisher's dad from his marriage to Debbie Reynolds) when I was a boy and it always reminded me of him. Today, on the way home from school, I played it in my car: "Oh, my papa, to me he was so wonderful; oh, my papa, to me he was so good..." When It got to the part that says "...Gone are the days when he would take me on his knee and with a smile he'd change my tears to laughter..." I realized that I have not yet gotten over his passing. Funny, when I think of him, I don't see him as he was in his mature years; rather, I see him as he was in my boyhood...strong, handsome, confident, humorous, protective. I remember little incidents, words he spoke...When I was very little, he warned me never to turn on a light switch with wet hands and to this day, I never do...I also remember his triumphs as well as his disappoitments, his loud infectious laugh as well as his tears. My daughter often told me when she was just a little girl, "Daddy, I don't feel safe when you're not home" (in Greek, "Baba, then esthanoumai sigouri otan then eisai spiti"). Exactly the way I felt about my father when I was little