Two years ago I stood on the corner of Rue de la Tremoille, just off the Champs-Elysees and watched my parents' faces slowly drift away through the tiny window at the rear of a taxi cab. As I waved my arm back and forth amidst the cold October air, I had not the faintest idea as to what exactly I was saying goodbye to. At that point in my life, goodbye was still just a word, one whose entire meaning was still somewhat unbeknownst to me. On that day, on that street, in that moment I said goodbye to my father forever.
Two years ago yesterday fate found it necessary to take him from this world unexpectedly, without the slightest warning sign as to its plans. When I returned to New York for the funeral, it didn't seem real. His car still sat in the driveway ready for him to leave for work the next morning, his coffee cup still sat at his desk half full waiting for him to return for the last few drops and his cologne still hung in the air as if I would turn the corner and see him fussing with his tie. I don't know what came over me but I spent the next few days rummaging through everything I could find. I didn't know what I was looking for or what I was hoping to find, I just kept scouring. I think I thought that maybe I would open some small, secret box full of answers, but, in fact, the only thing I seemed to find were more questions.
I learned a lot about my father when he passed (some of which I think I had rather not known), but even so, I found myself confronted by so many questions that I would never know the answers to. There were so many things that no one would ever know about him, so many things that died on that December night with him. I couldn't help but to wonder how I could have lived with a man for 20 years and only scratched the surface of who he truly was, how I could have shared blood with someone and yet felt as though he was still somewhat of a stranger to me.
People think they know someone by looking at them, talking to them, going to school with with them and even by going to bed with them. However, truth be told, how well do we ever really know anybody whose path crosses our own? How well will they ever really know us?
On that night my father laid in bed struggling to bring air into his lungs, the night my mother desperately tried to resuscitate him, the night my sister fought with her trembling hands to dial 911, the night my youngest sister awoke to the sight of my father being carried out of the house on a stretcher, and that same night that I danced atop a Dutch bar unaware that my life was unraveling thousands of miles away, we all changed. That one night changed everything, and yet that one night was still just one night, only one piece of who we became, of what we have encountered within our lives.
I'm sure at one point or another people have looked at us and judged us without knowing where we were coming from. Likewise, I'm sure people have looked at us and judged us because of where we were coming from. Everyone's road has bumps in it, some of us just hit them sooner than others. Thus, making it difficult for us to relate to one and other from time to time. I hope that this blog is able to entertain you, even just a little, but if I can also leave you with one meaningful message, I would want it to be this: people are the way they are for reasons. My time with my father was cut short and for this reason, it will always be a little bit harder for me to allow myself to get close to someone, to put aside my fear of losing them in exchange for the possibility of gaining something wonderful, even if only for a little bit. However, with that being said, I have also learned to look at people in a new way; to ask questions and to question answers. No one's story is printed on their face. You will only ever know as much about a person as you are willing to discover and you will only ever encounter truth when you have gained trust.
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