Black Cadillac

I used to listen to that song over and over; there are songs I listened to to prepare for his death. That’s the one I remember most.

You can’t quote any of that song unless you write the lyrics yourself, probably violates copyright.

It’s strange to prepare for someone dying long before they’re dead. I’ll post the eulogy I wrote; it’s the best piece of writing I had. But Dad can’t read or hear it. It helped a lot of other people, but the one person you’re really talking to can’t hear you and won’t ever hear it or anything after it either.

It’s almost 7 weeks since he died. I tell myself, “Dad is dead. You’ll never see him again.” You can never talk to him again ever ever and more evers.

I got a lot of time. He was 94. I still want him back and selfishly need him. Not the 94 year old him; maybe the 74 year old who went with me to Tokyo for a solo show of my art work there that happened because he made it happen. When I was in Tokyo with him, I was lost as soon as we left the hotel, didn’t know how to get to the gallery, didn’t remember the tiny bit of Japanese I learned years ago. He took me everywhere. Once I got there I was a grown up artist talking confidently about my work. It was the Zenith of my career as an artist. Now I’m inhabiting the nadir; it was a wonderful experience. I thought it was the middle of the mountain but it was the top, afterwards coming down the mountain. I would never be able to make him that proud again but I’m grateful we went together, just us, on that incredible trip. And that I got to feel like a successful artist with a solid show in Tokyo imagining Moscow might be next. (2010, that Moscow is as dead as he is, but for a shining moment, I got to shine with him standing next to me. Oh how I wish things were different and that I could be preparing for some show somewhere meaningful and again have that feeling. Even so, I can’t have that feeling even if I were in that fantasy world because Dad can’t be there anyway.

So I guess writing that eulogy is the top of some mountain about him, even for him the way things can be for dead people. Just as much in imagination as what could have been but never was or became. Reality is like shoveling that pile of dirt to throw on his coffin. It surprised me how hard it was to get on the shovel. The dirt was literally too hard, and I felt too weak to get much on the shovel even after a big effort.

But flowers are light and easy to throw. My show in Tokyo was about flowers living and dead flowers.