Why I'm Uncomfortable with Independence Day

For those hoping for some righteous indignation about the current political situation and some sort of treatise on the particular breed of hypocrisy and violence embedded in the American State nowadays... Sorry. This post isn't really going to be political*. It's going to be personal (and not in the "the personal is political" way, but the legit "this is my heart" kind of way).

In a previous post, before talking about getting rid of an abusive ex, I talked about my dad. He died two Septembers ago. He took his own life. And in that post, I explained how Christmas had been tainted for me, that when I was little, it was the stuff a Norman Rockwell painting- joy and togetherness and warmth. But when I got older, too much life happened, and as Dad's decline grew steeper and steeper, Christmas became more and more miserable. 

What I didn't bring up is Independence Day. On the Fourth, Dad would somehow manage to get himself out of bed (or off the couch- after a certain point, he stopped sleeping in the bedroom), make a nice breakfast for everyone (I think Dad liked making breakfast more than grilling, to be honest- as things got worse, he stopped grilling way before he stopped making pancakes), and start getting The Meat ready for the grill by late afternoon. He would at least pretend to be happy, and turn back into the Dad of the Year Edition of himself. If there was a video game for us to play, we'd sit around and he'd take turns with me and my two sisters (or just me and my younger sis- my older sister stopped coming home pretty early on in everything) in shooting whatever zombies or solving whatever puzzles there were with the same enthusiasm as before he fell apart. There wasn't fighting. There wasn't anger. There wasn't malice. He was funny, charming, warm. He was sober.

It was like time had shifted, or he alone had, like his old self would inhabit his current body for the day. A part of me knew he was acting, but it just made me love him more- because he was doing it for everyone else. I've only grown to understand that more, having grappled with my own mental illness and had to put on a face for people, too. Masks aren't for you, they're for the ones you love.

And I clung to that. Even if every other day, we barely spoke, or he was never sober enough to remember what we talked about by the time I was twenty-two, there, there was the proof he still cared, in how alive he was on the Fourth. The real act was when he made it seem like he didn't care. And I know that was for me, too- pushing me away out of his shame, his disgust with his own self. I know he didn't think he deserved any of us. He blamed himself for everything that happened to our family- from diagnoses to finances. I even have wondered if he blames himself for me being raped in grad school- I remember him mumbling something about how he "should have taught me to be safer" or something like that during the trip home where I told him and Mom; at the time, I took it more as a victim-blaming thing, but I really don't believe that anymore. Because while it was kind of funny and eye-roll-worthy as a kid, his tendency to take responsibility, to be a martyr, was what drove his depression so far.

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Fireworks.

Man, Dad loved fireworks. And the big ones, too. Not the little dinky ones the Boy Scouts sell. Nono, we're talking rockets and explosives, the illegal kind you have to drive to a Reservation to get. Fireworks were Dad's Thing, I would say even more so than the grill (or breakfast) (in the sense that he took so much pleasure in fireworks). And he was smart about it- he would start making trips to the Rez in like February, so that by the time Spring was over and cops started randomly searching trunks for contraband (i.e. in anticipation of people smuggling fireworks into town), he was done and wouldn't have to worry. Even if we couldn't afford steaks, we always, always had a great fireworks display on the Fourth. 

I like to describe the fireworks on our block the way Christmas decorations get shown on TV/in movies sometimes. You know what I'm talking about, how it's a sign of status or awesomeness to have a huge Christmas display on the lawn, and competition between neighbors is sometimes a subplot (if not the main plot) of Christmas movies/shows. Well, by our third summer in our house (I would have just finished seventh grade), our neighbors were actively trying to best him with their own fireworks displays. But every year, he'd still have the very best fireworks of the block. It got to the point where our neighbors would kind of crowd nearish to our house to watch ours- they'd set up their lawn chairs and wait for Dad to finish before going back in front of their own houses to do whatever they had. 

One of my last Summers in Vegas, one of the last before the divorce, our next door neighbor knocked on the door an hour or so before sunset. He had a huge sack in one hand and a six-pack of Coors in the other. He asked to talk to Dad, so Dad politely stepped out onto the porch with him and shut the door- Dad was always good at reading people, and he could tell our neighbor had something big to talk to him about. When Dad came back inside, our neighbor was gone, and Dad was holding the bag and beer. 

Mom and I both kind of charged him, talking over each other but asking similar questions, and Dad shut us up by setting the beer down and opening the sack- it was filled with a LOT of expensive, fancy Rez fireworks, the same sort Dad liked. He explained that there was a health emergency in our neighbor's family- nothing super life-threatening, but our neighbor needed to go to the hospital right away. He didn't want the fireworks to go to waste, and he "couldn't think of a better place to put them than in the hands of The King." Yes, my Dad was "The King of Fireworks" amongst our neighbors, apparently, and the six-pack was a "tribute." The guy had also said he "was sorry he wasn't going to see what The King was gonna do this year," too. 

Dad was so damn proud. 

[I'm having trouble reading my typing, here, because of how much the whole memory means to me, but especially this moment. The big grin on his face, the way he kind of puffed up his chest to be funny, but how there was a significant part of him that so meant it. ]

I remember us all calling him, "Your Majesty," the rest of the night- once we got outside, my little brother even gestured with a wave of his arm and a bow to Dad's chair for viewing once each firework was lit and said, "Yoah fwoan, Yoah Majesty!"  

It was... perfect.

And most telling, he didn't open that pack of beer until he had put the last firework in the water bucket. I told him I was proud of that as we were going inside, and he mumbled something and turned away- but not before I saw his eyes water. 

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So, Fourth of July. It hurts.

Because I miss him, so fucking much. 

I still regret not reconciling with him. 

I still smile remembering the one time he accidentally dropped a smoke bomb or something, and it kind of popped and he squealed like a little kid as he ran. 

I still remember the last time I saw him, and my chest tightens.

I still giggle when I think of all the times he snuck me over to his closet when Mom was busy to whisper conspiratorily and show me his latest haul from the Rez once his personal buying season started. Like Mom didn't know what he was up to. Hah.

But the moment I start thinking of "doing something" for the Fourth, I just want to cry. I feel hollow again, like I did when Mom told me what happened. The more I think about it, the farther I move from "want to cry" to "actually crying." If I think long enough, I start sobbing.

I don't know when I'll be able to genuinely enjoy a Fourth of July without putting on a mask, or at least pushing something down deep. Maybe never. Dad is gone, and fireworks will never be the same for me. And honestly? I'm not sure if I want them to.


*Although yeah, if you know me or this blog, you know I could totally write the shit out of a post about that.