Dave Danner

This morning I woke up jazzed to go to work. As I put on my last bit of makeup, I realized that today was the day my dad died, eight years ago. Of course, this fact has been knocking around in my brain over the last month or so, and had been very present this last week. Yet somehow, I woke up without it being my first thought today. This is the first year that I did not feel extreme sadness on the anniversary. At first, after I realized what day it was, I thought I should shift gears and be somber. But then I wondered what Dad would want. He was a vibrant person--always joking and taking life in. My guess was that he probably would want me to proceed with my day as I had started it: excited to be alive.

Some years ago, a co-worker, whose father had also died when she was young, told me that she didn't think a parent's death was really something that one "gets over." To an extent, I think she is right. After eight years, the feelings are not nearly as raw. But this experience--and especially, I think, if it happens before you're really an adult--changes you. All of your adult firsts are tinged, sometimes slightly, sometimes overwhelmingly, with sweet sorrow.

So, on this eight-year anniversary of his passing, I'm thinking of all the things I would have loved to share with my dad. Of course, this could take up volumes, so I'm just going to share some of the bigger ones.

My husband
I think my dad and Milan would have enjoyed each other tremendously. Milan has many of the qualities I admired in my dad: kindness, a dizzying intellect, a general curiosity about the world and the people in it. They both have/had an affinity for history, politics, public television and radio, old things, and, of course, music. Here you have two men who would quite happily spend a couple of hours with a nice cup of tea and an atlas.

Our house
My dad would be happy to know that our family tradition of working with our hands has successfully been passed on, as evidenced by the rehab job done last winter on the third floor of our 100-year-old house. I think he would love the patina of this place just as much as we do. He probably would have ruminated over replacing the windows like we did, feeling a twinge of sadness while looking at the wavy glass and the carved marks that had been made by another person's own two hands a century ago. And though our postage stamp of a yard doesn't hold a candle to the sprawling acres filled with gardens and orchards of my childhood, I think he would be glad to see the cosmos, lavendar and purple cone flowers that greet our visitors. He would find our neighbors to be kindred spirits, and would be happy that we'd found our own little corner in this city.

The election of Barack Obama
My dad minored in Black History in college, and knew all of Martin Luther King's speeches by heart. During the entire election, I often pondered what Dad would have thought of it all. I'm sure he would have been boo-hooing with all the rest of us during the inauguration. I think during this past year, that was the day I missed him the most.

Italy
I started going to Italy a few years before my dad died, when I was in graduate school. When I came home on a break and told my parents that I was going to spend my summer in ITALY, yes, ITALY, they gleefully quizzed my knowledge of Italian and sang "Buona Sera, Signorina," Louis Prima-style to me. Two years later, I came home from Italy, suddenly and unexpectedly, because Dad was very sick and wasn't expected to live long. My dad was always more of an armchair traveler, but I have a feeling that Italy could have lured him from the comforts of home. I think he would love my friends there, the food, and the essence just as much as I do. It's a place that, despite its flaws, is about living in the moment.

Food
When my dad died, I was still learning how to be an adult. As a graduate student, my repertoire in the kitchen was fairly limited, so I swooned when Mom and Dad visited, and Dad reported that I was becoming a very good cook. Since then, my foodie self has learned from the best: Italians, along with Martha, Julia, and Food Network. I often invite other foodie friends over to dinner, and we eat at the oak table that sat in our dining room when I was growing up. The one that Dad so lovingly refinished, and the one around which our family gathered for Thanksgiving and Christmas each year. Not to brag--oh, what the heck, I'm going to brag. If he thought I was good then, he should see me now. Oh, how I would love to make him a perfectly crusty-on-the-outside, chewy-on-the-inside rosemary boule. Or pasta with homemade sauce. Or chicken with mushrooms and cream.

When my dad died, I wanted to slap people who told me that "it all happens for a reason." I seriously did not want to hear that. I wanted my dad back. I didn't want to face the rest of my life without him. It was all so unfair. I felt like the world around me was some bizarre place that no longer belonged to me. It seemed utterly cruel that the world marched on when something so horrible had happened. Those people ordering lattes and hurrying down the street to their offices--didn't they know my dad had died? How could they be so nonchalant? I actually hated sunny days, because I couldn't bring myself to be happy about it, and felt abnormal for wanting to remain indoors. But slowly, the veil started to lift, and I began to love life again. And those people, who most certainly didn't deserve a slap, for they were just trying to offer some sort of comfort, were correct on some level. My dad's passing taught me how very precious and fleeting life is. When I find myself getting overly worked up about something, usually trivial in nature, I stop and ask myself if it really matters in the grand scheme of things. And, usually, it does not. Health, check. Milan, check. Roof over my head, check. Everything else can be figured out somehow.