Day 91

By the time my younger brother got to middle school, my mother was fed up and disgusted with the teachers and principal of Sacred Heart School. The teachers were not great and the principal permitted me to get bullied for far too long. As my brother’s years at SHS drew to a close, Mom would say, “When your brother graduates, I’m going to hang out the flag.” As fate would have it, my brother graduated on Flag Day, one of those days that everyone feels patriotic and hangs out a flag. It’s the thing to do. An obligation. Therefore, the gesture lost some of its symbolism for Mom.

(To read more about why Mom couldn’t wait to be done with Sacred Heart you can read my essay “Butch” on page 51 of the Watchung Review: https://watchungreview.omeka.net/items/show/2)

Twenty-nine years later, our vile president celebrates another birthday, a privilege that will be denied my father because, as you already know, Trump killed him. It doesn’t seem fair that an evil human being, a man who has caused so much death and suffering gets to be blessed with another year, while my father was denied more time with his family. Dad died two months ago. His life was cut short, and yet people who bow down to Trump, people who have been brainwashed by Fox news, mock his death by calling people who insist on others wearing masks “germaphobes.” Just so you are aware, when you say, I don’t need to wear a mask, the virus is not that bad, you are spitting on me and my pain. When you say, no one should force me to wear something against my will, you are really saying I am a selfish human being who doesn’t give a shit about anyone else. Why aren’t they the ones suffering? Why are the people who are so cavalier and critical of science not the ones burying their parents? Why aren’t they the one’s experiencing death? It makes me question the existence of a god. Why did Dad die while arrogant Trump supporters live?

I read a poem today by Andrea Gibson titled, “Dear Trump Voter.” The poem compares Trump to Hitler and the nazi officers to Trump’s supporters. It makes a powerful statement regarding the political climate in America, and ends by stating, “In the history of the US it was never more clear that a vote would be a bullet. There is no distance between you and the blood. The truth will not give you an inch to the lie of innocence, to the governable denial of everyone who continues to aim for the head while calling it making something great again.” The book was published in 2018, two years ago, two years before the death toll in the United States surged beyond 115,000. But any smart person saw it coming way before. Those of who didn’t vote for him, foresaw the shit show we’d experience if Trump where in office. We knew people would suffer. We knew Trump would hurt the poor, the minorities, the queers. But I never expected my father to die. I never fathomed that he — a middle class, straight, white man — could become one of Trump’s victims. But he did. Because Trump lied. Because Trump doesn’t care about anyone but himself — not even his base, the deplorable who have kept him where he is. And those who elected him are just as responsible for the carnage. Every man and woman who voted for Trump helped killed those who died from the virus, They encouraged his lies and his preference for Wall Street over compassion for the elderly. Every Trump voter killed every child who died in a cage at our border. Every Trump voter massacred every black man slaughtered like a beast by cops in the last four years. And every LGBT person who will now die due to insufficient health coverage was murdered by those who support Trump. The bullets flew in 2016 but some of them took 4 years to find their mark. Sadly, the majority of Americans knew Trump was a depraved soul incompetent of ethical leadership. They knew his narcissism would destroy our country, but the electoral college elected him anyway. And so we can only hope Biden wins enough votes in November so that the bullets cast for Trump in 2020 fail before they can kill any one else. Trump wants to Keep America Great. How do his supporters not question his slogan, his morals, and his motives. Or have they questioned his motives and found nothing wrong with them. If so, I believe that’s even worse. That only increases their culpability. 

Mom came to the beach today. My son asked her to please join us. She agreed since we were going to the sound and not the bay. Like my son, she said it’s less painful. There are less memories. Less to miss. But still, the entire time she sat there she thought of Dad and how much he loved the beach. “Look at the clouds,” she told me. “Look at the way they trace the shore line. Your father would have enjoyed seeing that.” We brought games to occupy us — Yahtzee and Uno. Mom won Yahtzee and we all won a round of Uno. We never brought games to the beach with Dad. There were always so many other things to do. Or maybe we were just happy doing less. Because he was there. When my spouse and I take my son to the ocean we always bring games, especially when we are out in Cape Cod. I find I’ve been falling back on what the three of us do often, instead of what we used to do with Dad. Maybe it’s because it’s what I’m used to when I’m the adult — one of two — in charge. Maybe because it’s easier than trying to remember every little thing Dad did, because if I miss something I’ll feel I somehow slighted him. That’s why my son and I sat on towels instead of chairs. Daddy always brought chairs. We sit on the sand. Mom looked lost on her chair. How do you go to your husband’s favorite place without him and not feel anything but emptiness and loss? 

This evening my son wanted to watch Knives Out. We saw it after Christmas, and used the movie passes that had been a holiday gift from my spouse’s colleague to my son. We all really enjoyed the movie. My son thought it was one of the best he’d ever seen. December wasn’t that long ago, but it feels like an eternity.