Unplugging The Life Force - Published in Poetry & Prose, 2012
Dad died over five years ago now. It’s still fresh as ever. It amazes me how my thoughts change and evolve on the subject as we all struggle to cope with life without him.
We’re lost with him gone, each prisoner to our own personal hells. I often long for him, to ask him about death; regarding my own primal fear of it, I wish he were here so I could ask him more about what he’d been thinking in those last moments. What he’d been feeling, how he was coping with the inevitable. I want him here to answer my questions more than ever. Once I dreamed of him. “What’s it like?” I begged him to tell me. “It’s not what you think.” he answered. “It is not what you think…do you really want to know?” and I froze with uncertainty and pleaded that he not tell me.
In dreams he appears in mirrors, standing behind me and smiling. In other dreams he is crawling along roads; or sitting in mock dental chairs surrounded by gothic creatures wearing frightening medical ensembles and razor sharp teeth. His limbs, long ago amputated, buckled and strapped into harnesses in a freak sideshow medical circus. In yet another he’s in purgatory - the steambath, perhaps. Other times he’s alive again, and I run to him in tears, feeling the warmth of his solid round stomach against me.
It’s often that I scramble to find the missing pieces of a man I once thought I knew. All that I have left of him are piles of old slides, negatives, and music. I try to find him in the music; I know that he lies hidden in there, between the layers. I pick through the debris of his office, growing staler by the day, cobwebs covering his machines, files written in his beautiful calligraphy, electronic components scattering the floor. Late afternoon sun beams through the few lonely and boarded up windows. There’s nothing here now but dust, mouse droppings, and decay. If his spirit ever lingered here, it is long gone now. I watch as my mother drops his things into garbage bags. She cries and I turn away quickly, not wanting to see. If I let myself stop to contemplate the value of these things, of a once living man, I won’t be able to shove them in a bag for the trash.
We watch videos sometimes, but he is always just a voice behind the camera, egging people on and panning the landscape, commenting on the events of the day, making jokes. We all sit stock still, waiting for the moment that he appears, alive again, caught on film. In the background, plodding through the barn, or sitting in a chair reading. I sometimes wake during the night, and hope that I will see him standing there. I clutch at things he left behind: grocery receipts, faxes, or letters, looking for clues.
I have his old tape deck, the one he last used, but I won't allow myself to clean it. It’s filthy with dust and grease, and has the musty smell of cigarettes, office grime and engine oil. There are fingerprints on it, and there they are: proof of life. My mother gives me a stack of old paycheck stubs, with his Hungarian name, the one he used only in the early years. I take them from her as if I'm going to throw them away but instead I hide them in the trunk of my car. The traces of someone who once lived; I can't let go.
Other times I’m angry with him, and I feel the old hate burning up inside. He left us with a great weight on our shoulders, and so many burdens. My mother has grown weary with them. She lives a solitary life, surrounded by his ghosts, unable to break free. He was complex, not without flaws, quick to anger, rude and socially awkward, but possessed intellect, quick wit, and vibrancy. A man you could easily detest and couldn’t help but like.
I don’t let myself cry anymore. It’s time to move on.
