11/1

There are so many “firsts” when you lose someone. For me it’s been as follows (in no particular order):

The First Baseball Game

The First Time I Went To Call Him and Realized Oh Right, He’s Dead.

The First Time I Referenced Him Without It Being Sad

The First Time I Did Fantasy Football and Realized How Little I Care About Football Without Him Here

The First Packer Game

The First Chili

The First Ribs

The First Time at the Dahlia Farm Dreaming About How Much He Loved Being Here With Us

The First Time Wearing His Sweatshirt That I Didn’t Like but Now Do Because Wow, He Was Right, It Is Comfy

The First Seeing My Best Friend Have a Baby and Realizing How Much of My Life He Will Miss

The First Day of School Where He Isn’t Coaching or Doing Something School Related

The First Time Talking to My Family About The Holidays Because Even Though We Don’t Want to Think About It We Have to.

The First Time Voting and Thinking “I Wonder Who He Would Have Voted For Because Would He Have Voted for a Black Woman?” And Convincing Myself He Would Have Because I Have to Believe He Had Come Around on Trump. He Definitely Had, Right?

The First Time Seeing a Friend Reference Her Own Grief, Feeling Real Empathy and Crying at Work For Her

The First Truly Happy Day

The First Birthday

The First Father’s Day Although It Was So Close to His Death it Wouldn’t Have Really Registered Except Everyone Else Kept Bringing It Up

The First Time I Realized There Are Chipmunks Basically Invading My Parents’ Home

The First Time I Had To Call an Exterminator For My Mom Because She Was Too Grief-Stricken To Deal With the Chipmunk Problem

The First Time I Told My Mom She Needs to Move to Get Away From the Chipmunk Problem

The First Time Reading Through All The Quotes I Wrote Down Over the Years Because He Said Ridiculous Shit Pretty Much Constantly

The First Therapy Session

The First Time Talking About What Really Happened

The First Day Back to Work

The First Time Calling My Aunt Because It’s What My Dad Would Have Wanted

The First Wanting to Tell Someone to Fuck Off and Realizing Later My Mood Was Because of Grief

The First Trivia Night Where I Can’t Call Him Afterward to Ask Him the Ones I Didn’t Know and Quiz Him on the Ones I Did

The First Time I Got New Glasses that He Would Have Hated

The First Time I Had a Little Bit of Blonde Dyed Back in My Hair Because He For Some Odd Reason Loved that He Had a Mostly Blonde Family

The First Time Back in a Hospital (by accident, to have blood work drawn)

The First Small Anxiety Attack Post Hospital Visit

The First “Got the Test Results and You’re Fine” Thank God It Doesn’t Seem Like I Have What He Had

The First Time Going to an NBA Game and Realizing Afterward That It Was a Preseason Game and Laughing at How Hard He Would Have Laughed at Me.

The First Joking With My Mom About Him

The First Acknowledgment That He May Have Been A Lot of the Problem Sometimes

The First Anger at Him Being Gone

The First Time Writing Down How I Feel About That Anger

The First Time Seeing a Huge Hawk and Thinking “Man I Wish I Thought He Was Out There Somewhere, Flying Around as a Hawk.”

The First Time Trying to Make Myself Believe That He’s Flying Around as a Hawk Somewhere

The First Time Having a Really Gross Coffee Creamer That He 100% Would Have Had in His Fridge and Thinking “Good God, Dad, You Really Had Terrible Taste.”

The First Time Having a Peanut M&M and Not Realizing that Something as Small as Peanut M&Ms are Going to Make Me Feel Something

The First Time Watching a Show That Unknowingly Featured a Dad Dying Unexpectedly and Sobbing Uncontrollably Yet Cathartically for a Half Hour

The First Dia de los Muertos Where I Will Light a Candle and Make a Little Shrine of Goodies He Would Have Loved (And That Gross Coffee Creamer) and Say Hello To Him Even Though It Feels Silly But I Have to Let Go of that Americanized Avoidant Bullshit

The list will go on, seemingly forever. Just know if you’re going through this, that even the bad firsts, the horrible firsts, the hardest firsts, will be evened out with First Memories – happy things that start to creep in and take over that sadness. Going to a baseball game was hard, but it made me think of all the amazing times I had with him at games. My birthday was hard, but made me so grateful to feel so loved, even in his absence. The chipmunks issue is…horrible yet funny; and frankly, if he were here it wouldn’t be, he hated those damn things. Just nods at the fact that life really does keep truckin’ along.