Daddy Dearest.

“When is Father’s Day?”

“It’s Sunday.”

“Can we … not … celebrate it this year?”

It’s amazing how your world can change in a split second. We all know it’s possible, but we all go on as though it couldn’t – won’t – happen to us until it does.

And then there it is.

The wreckage in the center of our life’s road that we can’t stop looking at and are for now and ever forced to maneuver around. Eventually, the grass grows up around and over it, shielding it from our daily view. But it’s always there and we stumble over it again and again, the sting just as much because it will never not be there as for what put it there in the first place. And there’s nothing like Father’s Day to stub our toe and remind us that the man of the house is, well, me and only me.

This is our sixth Father’s Day solo.

We’ve celebrated it. We’ve ignored it. We’ve done things he would have liked against our will. We’ve brought flowers to a stone for a man who refused to buy flowers because they … ummm … die. We’ve watched movies. We’ve ridden bicycles. We’ve released balloons. We’ve ignored the phone. We’ve picked up the phone.

We have counted the minutes to the end of the day.

A week ago, a perky teenaged girl packing up our groceries took one glance at us and decided we were the family that would know. Watching her as she watched us, I felt the tingling on the back of my neck that happens anytime something unsavory seems to be looming. “When is Father’s Day this year?” She meant well, I’m sure. But did it have to be us? Two little heads whipped around to stare at me for direction and I breathed deep when the cashier filled the gap. “It’s next Sunday … no flowers today?” He smiled at us and watching him feed the food down the conveyor belt I couldn’t help but think I saw the flicker of recognition in his old, gentle eyes.

Milestones are the sinkholes in the road we travel and Father’s Day is perhaps one of the deepest.

I’ve spent years keeping his memory alive for them. With remote and rare exceptions, I am the voice that utters his name or tells his stories to them. It’s an exhausting responsibility that has aged me and that has left no living space for my stories, and it’s caused me to increasingly resent this once-yearly now-maternal milestone. They are as done with the upkeep as I am, it seems.

“Is that what you want to do?”

“Yes, we both do. It doesn’t mean that we don’t love him. Can we just not celebrate it and have it be a normal day?”

“A normal day sounds perfect.”

Perfect for an imperfect day.