I’ve decided, a bit late, to participate in Reverb10 which you can read about here. Every day, you are given a prompt to inspire a blog post, centered around looking back at your year and looking forward into the next one. I love this kind of stuff, get nearly giddy thinking about making LISTS of all the things I’ve done this year and making plans for the fresh new year, something about flipping that calendar page gets me all hot and bothered.

I’ve missed the first few days so yesterday, ever determined, I clicked over to the website to see Alice’s prompt for Sunday.

December 5th: Let Go: What (or whom) did you let go of this year? Why?

Oh, no offense to Alice or to reverb10 but here’s my middle finger. You’re welcome.

Oh hell no, I thought and PROMPTLY (HA GET IT) closed my laptop. Reverb10, The End.

…

BUT SERIOUSLY FOLKS.

I suppose the prompt was there for a reason and it’s a really good question but my God, do I really have to answer it?

Okay, fine, reverb10. Fine.

This year I let go of the idea that my father was invincible. I stopped clinging hard to the belief that he would always be there, that he would never age. And it sounds a little bleak, I suppose but it was freeing in a way I didn’t expect. My father, strong and dependable, the man who empties the little garbage cans around the house and changes the dehumidifier water in the basement, who chops up wood for the fireplace, who runs out to the store four, five, six times for baking ingredients for my mother on holidays, who slips me a $20 bill for gas, who waves to me as I pull my car into the driveway for a visit as if he hasn’t seen me in years and cannot contain his excitement, this man. He won’t always be be able to do these things. And he won’t always be here.

Through it all, when he fell and got sick and screamed and cried from the shooting pain in his leg, when he rambled high on Vicodin, as we dialed 911 for an ambulance, as I stroked his veiny hands, as I saw him in a diaper, in a hospital bed, in a wheelchair, I could not escape this reality. This man has been a permanent fixture for me my entire life and one day he won’t be around. And it could be now. And it could be later. But there had to be a letting go on my end, a dropping of heavy bags with a thud onto the carpet, a release and an exhale: this is not forever.

I let go because I had to.

I let go because my father had served me for 27 years and it was time to serve him. It wasn’t a matter of marching around living the cliché of “live every day like your last” or some other ridiculous saying that gets plastered on posters in office walls with an eagle soaring above an open sky. No. I didn’t hug my father more or tell him how much he meant to me or spend hours crying over all the things I’d never before said.

The truth was that I already told my dad I loved him and already hugged him at every opportunity and quite often sat down to talk to him about his childhood or his parents or how he felt about being a father. Perhaps I am lucky in this regard. It has far less to do with how I am as a person than it does with how my father is as a person: an open, loving, joyful person who is not shy about revealing the contents of his heart. He used to be, I think. But over the years, he has cracked open and being loving toward him is easy because he is so loving toward me.

In letting go of the idea that my dad was impenetrable to all physical harm and not immune to the passing of time, I stepped into a new role. Now, I empty the garbage, I run out for forgotten baking ingredients, I pay for my own gas, I wave excitedly to him when I see him. I cook him dinner on Sundays, make us cups of tea, give him movies to watch and magazines to read, distract him with stories, ask him how he’s doing. I care for him in the way he has always cared for me.

I let go.

My dad is not forever.

But my dad is here now.

Together, we continue to evolve as father and daughter, no longer Superman and his fawning admirer, but as equals, adults, who care for each other, who grow and adapt and change.

The baggage hits the floor. It makes a crashing sound as the contents shatter.

You can leave it there. You can walk away. Right through the door. Into new and startling sunlight. It’s beautiful in its own way.