My Dear Ones Part III; One less name for Roll-Call

I think the most satisfying part of a project is around the last quarter.  Its where things really start to take shape, things are getting cleaned up and you can see the end in sight.  I recently built an effects rack for my guitar rig and the start was pretty cool as I saw all the potential it had, all the pieces and some of the lineages of the pedals.  Some of them were new but some of them were old pedals I’ve had for a long time.  It was fun planning it out, talking about it and even paying for it.  But then the middle part hit and it was a mess.  I still saw the promise of the future but the crappy state of the middle was really not sitting well with me.  I persevered and got it done and right around the 3/4 mark was when I started to get into it again, seeing things fall into place, seeing things take shape and being able to play through it was one of the greatest things I’ve ever been able to do in terms of guitar gear.

It’s been two months since the man that stood at the head of our family’s table for decades passed away.  How can it be two months since Papa passed from this world?  How can it be two months since time, work and life stopped for 6 days as we remembered, as we mourned and as we celebrated him?  Two months since I had to carry his casket with my brother and cousin, two months since I had to watch my Nana say “goodbye Vince” and kiss him on his forehead the night he passed away.

Lauren and I went to see him on Saturday, the day before father’s day.  We left him a guitar pick from the wedding, a note and a piece of our tomato plant.  Papa loved good fruit, he loved his garden so Lauren and I felt it appropriate to bring him something like that.  I lost it when I was there.  Who am I kidding, I’m crying right now while I’m writing this.  It was so hard to look at a headstone and make heads or tails of what was going on.  I wanted so desperately to tell him about work, ask him about how to parent, take him down to Paradiso’s or have him over to my townhouse and show him the house, BBQ for him, but none of that is possible.

I feel bad that he only got to see me at the beginning and then the troubled teen years.  I was generally a good guy, but I feel like he is missing out on the “reward” phase of his life.  His grandkids are all growing up, getting married, buying property and having kids of their own.  They are starting careers, learning how to cook and more importantly, how to appreciate.  I wish he could have met Eily, I wish I could have gone over his house and BBQ’d with him or gone down to Paradiso’s and watched him tell the people behind the counter, “This is my great grand-daughter Emily!”.

I know he’s watching us, I know he’s proud of us, and I know he’s still helping us.  I think the thing that hurts the most is this past father’s day Nana gave me a dad-to-be card that was signed “Nana”.  I know as much as I selfishly want and would have liked his name to be there, I know he would have loved to have it there as well…