I went to church today.  It’s been a while.  I was compelled to visit that Abbey that I took you to when you first visited me.  We walked the ground and you confessed your sins.  I keep a picture of you from that day on my nightstand.  You look both ready and reluctant.  That dichotomy summed up so much of your life.

Pete gave your eulogy.  He was dressed well and had on a suit and “looked like a man.”  Uncle Ted showed him how to tie his tie.  He talked of how he better understood you now that he’s a father.  The key words were sacrifice and not complaining.  Being a parent seems so terribly hard.  I wished for my life to be easier.

Do you remember in the apartment, when I was cleaning your crevices of diarrhea, how you casually said to me, “Well, you don’t have any babies to clean…”?  What a zinger.  You indeed had a timing to your words.  I liked how you said things others wouldn’t.  I am sure I get my boldness from you.

Did you ever notice how we had a similar story?  You left Italy to come to the US to make a new life there.  I left Illinois to venture West.  My only plan was to figure it out and create the place I thought I could.  I believed in me.  I think I got that from you, too.

At Christ, in that teeny room, you told me that you thought I made a good decision moving out here.  I quickly and confidently shot back, “I know”, and smiled.  The moment died.  I did not realize at the time you were being fatherly in your approval, 23 1/2  years later.  We had seemed to switch roles by then, but I do want to thank you for forgiving me for breaking your heart.

I drove away in that car you bought me.  A few months prior, you’d asked me “What color?” on the phone and I had no idea what you were talking about.  I didn’t even have my license yet.  You made other people’s dreams come true, at the expense of your own.  I asked you that specifically once.  What do you dream about?   You responded, “I don’t have dreams.”  Though I laughed to myself in that moment, I realize I’ve fallen into a similar pattern.  Reflected upon, and refracted back to you, it’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.

Get what you need.  Figure out how to amass a surplus.  Don’t want things or spend it on yourself.  You never know what might happen or when you might need it.  When you have enough holed away, you can dole out those excess resources to those in a tough spot or struggling.  But still remain frugal.  Others, remember, not you.  Make people better at the expense of your labor, your self.  Learning to go without is the key.  Be proud about how little you require to sustain yourself.  It’s not how much you make but how much (or many) you save.

I followed your blueprint to a ‘T’.  I have everything I was ever supposed to want.  I have more than enough and live comfortable and securely.  But, I struggle to figure out who to share it with.  I don’t have the blood descendants (dependents?) to support and be responsible for.  Because I get to decide everything, I ultimately end up choosing me.  Relationships are hard.  I have inherited your manner that exudes, “If I give you all of this, will you just leave me alone?”

An intermediate always exists between myself and the other person.  I never give them me, but a product of me.

Coming back and caring for you this last half decade, I think I was trying to show both of us there could be more.  I could put you above work, again and again.  I could prove to myself that it was in me, and I could convince you that you didn’t have to be strong or generous for me to stay.  Some call it “safe”, others, “freedom without the stipulation of also having to be alone”.

I am so glad to have spend this time with you.  It wasn’t all painful and hard.  It was mostly warm and loving and wanted.  The first time you said, “Cristin-eh, Cristin-eh, you are my whole heart,” I don’t know if I could have believed you.  By the second and third, I did.

I just hope you knew and understood that you were mine too.

I am both ready and reluctant to continue my life without you.  Wherever I go, you go. When they say my name, they say your name.  I don’t let them mispronounce or misspell it anymore.   There is so much to do and learn and create, but I will take my time, and lean into rest, and enjoy what remains.  I will not exhaust myself for the sake of getting.  And though I still might for the sake of giving, I will leave the door cracked open to receive.