“It’s a sad, funny feeling … “

“… now I’m older than him.” I didn’t write that … Amanda McBroom did. Lyrics to a song about her father. I love that song. Days like today.

The air smells like mud. It brings me back to the time … almost 26 years to the day … that my father died. It was an early spring in Montana. Those were rare 26 years ago. Now, thanks to the hole in the ozone layer, they probably happen more frequently.

Anyway, the air today … smells like mud. Just like it did the morning I drove my dad’s run-down car back to Anaconda from Missoula. I hadn’t spoken to my mom since my sister had called me (at a dress rehearsal) and told me my dad had died. And suddenly I felt that sensation. It’s a total cliche, but completely true. When my sister told me the news, I fell down on the ground … because it felt like the ground had fallen out from under me. I felt as though I had nothing left to stand on. Amazing how metaphors can actually happen, right?

I’ve now been alive longer without my dad than I was with. And it’s a sad funny feeling. The other day I confessed to Alana why I don’t like sharing food. It’s because my dad used to beg tastes and swallows of whatever I was eating or drinking. He’d say, “Give me just a swallow of that, would ya?” or “Let’s have a taste of that.” Drove. Me. Nuts.

But whenever I grunt a little when I bend down now to pick something up, or whenever I bounce my hand on a table top — from a fist to a flat hand and back — well … it’s a little uncanny. And a little unsettling. My dad.

My poor old dad.