Category Archives: Sad

Giving Props

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It’s a brand new day! Today I’ve been feeling the love and reveling in the fact that I have witnessed and took part in history. I’m still in a bit of shock.

Amidst the joy and hope, I am however saddened that Prop 8 – banning California gays to marry – passed. It’s funny to think that California is ready for a Black president, but aren’t ready for gay people to marry. It bothers me for many reasons, including the fact that my own sister now has to wait to see how things turn out. I also have friends that will be directly impacted by this. Yes, this awful and unfair proposition will be fought in the courts and I hope that it gets overturned in a timely manner. In the meantime, it’s strange to think that California is still intolerant enough to pass an actual civil rights ban and prohibit people who love each other from legally sharing their lives together. I guess I can take solace in the fact that it was nearly a 50% split, meaning that only half the state are bigots.

My joy turns to sadness turns to happiness as I’ve also found out that Prop 2 passed, which means factory farm animals must now be confined HUMANELY allowing them to move about freely in their cages. As a long time vegetarian (almost vegan) this is something I’ve wished for – for a long time. No more being squished together, no more being unable to move to the point that their little legs atrophy. This is a phenomenal step in the right direction towards animals rights. At the moment, nothing can be done about how the animals are killed, but knowing that their short lives are made just a little better gives me hope. It says something about us as a society, how we treat our animals. It’s been a long time coming and I’m glad. Animals suffer so very much on their way to your table, it’s time we finally give them the respect they deserve. It would be better if you didn’t eat them at all, but whatever…you make your own choice. I’ve made mine and I stick by it now 17 years.

This adds a new level of confusion. Animals now have more rights than gays. How does that compute? It boggles the mind, but it does show some form of progress and I’m happy for that. Prop 8 must be overturned. It has to.

Hooray for Obama, boo for Prop 8, and yay for Prop 2. Wow. People are taking baby steps, but I feel like we’re on our way. I feel confident that things will only get better from here. Perhaps once the Obama high wears off, I’ll return my normal, cynical self. Until then, I’m rather cheerful and optimistic.

Day Three: Phone Banking

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Day Three in Nevada. Last night I got a small reminder that I’m actually in a Las Vegas hotel. I lost 12 dollars on nickle slots and we had dinner in a fancy Chinese restaurant at Mandalay Bay. And then I crashed. Total and utter crash. Sleep. Zonk.

This morning, I awoke more tired than I’ve been in a long time. Not really feeling like going out again, I slumped over on the hotel room couch and waited to see if I could get up enough inertia. And then AJB and I talked a bit. This isn’t a vacation. He’s also got work to do and we decided that we’d stay in this morning, he’d work and I’d do some phone banking. Excellent idea.

Now, I’ve never done phone banking, so I was a little hesitant and nervous. Here’s how it works: You visit my.barackobama.com and set up an account. All the information you need is right there in an easy to use format. They give you a list of people to call along with a short script. It takes a few calls to get the hang of it, but once you do, it’s actually really easy. Not to mention, since it’s Monday, most people are at work and all you do is leave a quick message. You can use their script or make up your own. I chose to inform voters about the importance of this election and let them know they need to get out there, but also to be prepared for the long lines and take a book, water, and a folding chair. I think it went pretty well and I feel pretty good about it. I got 40 calls done.

So, if you want to help, phone banking is the easiest way to get the message across. It takes very little time. You do as much or as little as you can. You’ll pay the phone bill next month, but it’s the least you can do to help get Obama into office. If we all pull together, we can do it, we can really move this country into a new and brighter future. Can you imagine? Living in a country where government actually cares about it’s people and provides the fundamental assistance we all require? School, health care, care for the environment, etc? No, it won’t all get better overnight and the truth is, Obama is just a start. I honestly believe that it takes more than electing one man into office. Like during WWII, we all have to work together and make this country better. We won’t have it handed to us and she shouldn’t expect that. We’re Americans. We’re all about the “can do” attitude. We invented the phrase “git er dun”. So let’s do it! Git er dun!

AJB and I will be heading back out to help however we can this afternoon. If it means hitting the streets again or filing papers. Whatever it takes. Tomorrow’s the big day. There is also a chance we’ll be hanging door signs at 6am and then hanging out at the polls to make sure people stay in line. Apparently, the lines are going to be outrageous this year. Nevada is a tough state and has the lowest percentage of volunteerism in the country – which makes sense considering Las Vegas is a town fueled by greed, decadence, and selfishness. They need all the help they can get.

I just heard that Barack’s grandma died today. I can’t tell you how sad this makes me. I’ve lost several grandparents in recent years and I know how hard it is. To lose someone so important on the eve of the election. I mean, wow. It’s so heartbreaking. Just a day away from winning the election (’cause he will, you know). I’d heard that she was sick and I hoped she would make it so see him elected. I don’t think anyone from the Obama campaign reads this, but I would like to express my deep sorrow and condolences for the family. Perhaps Grandma is watching over him now. He’s speaking tonight. How hard must it be to keep going on after a tragedy like this? My thoughts are with the Obama family today.

Pre-Packaged Goth

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Instead of working my butt off yesterday, I palled around with my boyfriend’s 12 year old daughter. She and I have a few things in common and I think she’s a pretty great kid. In particular, even though she’s a twin, she’s still the middle child. I was the second born, but I was still a middle child. We both have challenging mothers. We both like to fix things and make things better. She reads like a fiend. When I was that age, I read like a fiend. Anything I could get my hands on. I remember when she was 9, she asked me if I thought it was OK to be weird. How cute. Of course, I replied, you’re talking to me! I’m the Queen of Weird, after all. Maybe not a Queen, maybe a Princess of Weird. Anyway, I’ve always made it a point to let her be herself and embrace her weirdness. She’s got a good head on her shoulders and she’s super smart.

For Halloween this year, she’s decided to be a Dark Fairy. I was never into Dark Fairies, because they didn’t really exist when I was 12, but I probably would have been. I thought, how cool is that? I need to help her! What better place to take a 12 year old girl putting together a Dark Fairy costume than Hot Topic? Sure, I don’t work there anymore, but it remains the one stop shop for pre-teens looking to rebel. I recalled that Dark Fairies were big when I worked there and knowing Hot Topic, probably still were. We got there and looked around a bit. Hardly any Dark Fairy items. Maybe one messenger bag. I wanted to get her some cool wings, but all they had were angels, butterflies, and devils. Booo.

Kudos to Hot Topic for finally dropping the fairies after all these years, but when we finally need something from them, they don’t deliver. What else is new? As an added bonus, the staff was playing THE most annoying music – it was GWAR or GWAR-like, you know the kind of music that sounds like Satan having a tough time in the bathroom? It’s probably my least favorite kind of music and really put off my boyfriend’s daughter. I imagined taking her in and finding all kinds of cool fairy stuff and then maybe even getting her excited about some Goth stuff. As usual, Hot Topic is out of the loop and don’t realize they’re dealing with a whole new generation of kids: The pre-teens on the verge of rebellion.

When I was 12, I was actually still playing with Barbies. Don’t tell anyone. It was 1987 and I was as uncool as it gets. I didn’t really start listening to cool music until I was 13 or 14. I didn’t commit fully to black clothes until I was 15 even though I sported Cure shirts with flower dresses in junior high. I also grew up in a town devoid of cool where it was hard to find good music and the only people I knew who dressed in black were a few of my friends. Things were different back then. There was no internet and no Hot Topic. I discovered Goth on my own and didn’t realize it had a name until I was in high school.

Something I realized yesterday sort of brought me down from my dark castle. Goth isn’t cool anymore. To non-Goths who watched Saturday Night Live and countless other pop culture parodies of the scene, it’s always been a joke. Those of us in it hardly paid any mind, but while we were ignoring the mockery, the world also grew to accept Goth in a way I never liked. You’d see Goth girls in commercials, videos, comic books, and crime dramas. The same thing happened with punk. I remember seeing an episode of CHiPS where a punk guy robbed an old lady. By that time, punk was dead, but it took a few years for mainstream media to catch on and integrate these funny characters into their lexicon. And so it’s happened with Goth. Goth is a joke to most people and especially to kids. In fact, my boyfriend’s daughter’s best friend is going to be a Goth for Halloween. Pre-packaged Goth costumes have been around for a few years, but it never really hit me like it did yesterday. Goth is a Halloween costume.

So now what? I haven’t been to a club in years, most of the outfits I wore are hanging in the closet getting moth holes. While I continue to wear black, dye my hair blue, and dream about future tattoos, in all honestly, I’m not there anymore. Not like I was. I continue to listen to the music and keep up to date with new bands, but that’s not it. It’s that I just don’t associate with it anymore. Goth, the scene. I’ll continue to love spider webs, haunted houses, bats, vampires, and Beetlejuice until the day I die, but I’m not a part of the scene anymore. I haven’t even updated Dark Culture in months. Sure, most of this stems from being in a stable relationship, working on my career, living in a fine house, and being 33. I fight the status quo in new ways and I pay more attention to Barack Obama and Tina Fey than what bands are playing where. And you know what? It’s not so much about the scene, it’s about the music. I recently found out that two bands I would have loved to see played and I missed them. How did that happen?

Perhaps this is just what happens. This is what it must have felt like to my parent’s generation when they saw kids dressed as hippies. You feel like you’re losing touch and it’s not as easy as it once was. But I don’t ever want to say, I used to be. If you’re not totally surrounded by it, it’s easy to let it slip away. Kids, a house, responsibilities, there comes a day when you simply decide not to do it anymore. You don’t even notice it happening. It just does. And that’s why I make extra effort to pay attention. I don’t want to lose touch, but I can see how it could happen if I let it.

Am I annoyed or angry that Goth is a Halloween costume? Not really. Because Goth is a parody, I can’t imagine my boyfriend’s daughter getting into it. Then again, she’s only 12. And even if she doesn’t, I know full well that whatever she chooses to be a part of and however she chooses to dress, she’s going to be one cool chick. She already is. I figure Dark Fairies are a good place to start.


Goths don’t really sport Faux Hawks, but at Target they do. Goths also don’t cheer very much. At least, not in public.

Happy Birthday Dad

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Dad Stirring The Beans

Dad Stirring The Beans

Today my Dad would be 63. It seems like only yesterday we were throwing him a 60th birthday party at his house in West Covina. That night, he drank a little too much, thanked everyone for the party except for us (the ones who actually threw it together), told my boyfriend he was fat a pretend-punched him in the belly, and really hurt my feelings. My Dad was a great guy, but because he was my Dad, had this remarkable ability to hurt my feelings, even though I often didn’t show it.

60 was the only party us kids ever threw for my Dad. We just never had the money to put on a big shindig and my Dad always wanted to spend time with us on his birthday, so we’d take him out for coffee or a cheap meal. My Dad loved hearty accolades, but hardly ever got them…at least not from us kids. The best I could do was act like a 9 year old around him and thank him every chance I got. I guess that’s OK. It wasn’t until I got older that I realized my Dad was just a guy, doing the best he could to get by, trying to look on the bright side of life, and struggling to be happy. Like me. I guess when someone dies, we all feel like we could have done more to appreciate them.

The funny thing is, I miss all that. I miss that lovable jerk who said the wrong things, drank too much, got pissed off at everybody, kicked my boyfriends out of the house when I was a teenager, and was stubborn to no end. Underneath it all, he was a sweet man who loved his kids, did everything he could to help his family, and loved to have a good time.

He’s been gone a little over two years now. This is a wound that will never heal, but I don’t ache like I used to. I don’t cry as easily and even though I think about him every day, I can now think about other things and have gone on with my life. The important lesson in all of this has been to appreciate those around me. Dale Carnegie, author of How to Win Friends and Influence People, states that one of the key methods to winning friends is to genuinely appreciate people. Appreciate them and mean it. Sincerity is often overlooked and hardly ever received in this fast-paced go-get-em world. My Dad was a pretty sincere guy. He didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve, but he said what he meant and meant what he said. He never shied away from telling you what was on his mind and I’d say my Dad was a pretty honest guy. Not perfect by any means, but well intentioned.

Happy Birthday Dad. I’ll miss you forever.

An Open Letter to the Rats

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I wrote an open letter to the rats in my basement, walls, and attic and posted it on Craigslist. Partially to be funny, but also to help clear my conscience. Not that I actually think the rats have a tiny internet connection and will read this letter, but it’s semi-cathartic to get it off my chest.

Dear Rat Family,

What you don’t know is that today is the beginning of the end. You may have noticed a chubby man in a yellow shirt walking around the house yesterday? His name was Tom, but you can call him “The Exterminator”. He, or one of his co-workers, will bring about your final judgment.

I’m so sorry that it had to come to this. I called every pest controller in the area and tried to have your family re-located, but they all agreed you had to die. No one would capture you in humane traps and take you to a new home in the forest where your children could run around, climb trees, and nibble on things. One guy even laughed at me when I asked. I looked into natural remedies that might annoy you so you’d leave on your own, but it’s more work than I can put into it. It also means going into the creepy attic and scary basement, which I avoid if I can. I also understand it’s illegal to save and relocate rats.

I don’t blame you for setting up camp in my house and I’m not mad at you. My house is pretty great and there are a lot of nooks, crannies, dark spots, and shrubbery to make a fine home in. You, like me, just want to survive, be happy, and live your life. However, I must face the fact you’re not a little chef and you don’t wear clothes or talk. You have the potential to carry disease, you breed like rabbits, you poop all over the place, and you’re probably why my allergies have been off the hook lately. I know you’re just doing what you do, but the cons outweigh the pros.

Today traps will be set and the slaughter will begin. You’ll go about your merry way, spot a tasty treat and go for it. You’ll think you’ve hit the jack-pot. After struggling to feed your family all these months, you’ll attempt to grab that tasty morsel and within an instant, a metal spring will snap and a bar will come crashing down on your skull. If you’re lucky, it will be instantaneous. At least one of your kin will encounter the trap and find that he’s pinned with a broken spine, still alive, dying slowly. At night, I’ll hear the traps snapping and cringe. I fully expect to cry. But what are my tears worth when I am essentially playing God and bringing about your doom?

As one by one, your family members take the bait, die, and are removed, you won’t learn anything. You won’t see the tiny corpses of your children and think to yourself, “I might not want to go after that delicious treat.” You’re smart, but you’re not that smart.

It’s not fair and nothing I can say will take away from the fact that I gave the order to have you killed. I wish there was a different way, but like you, I must take care of my family first. I’m sorry I’m not a better person and despite all my talk about saving the planet, loving animals, and being a vegetarian for 17 years, I am a failure. I failed your family.

Good-bye little rat family. I can’t say I’ll miss you, but I am sorry.

Within minutes, I had several responses:

  • Great post.

    I had rats once at a house I lived in in Venice on Walgrove.

    We set the traps and we listened to the SNAPPS!! It was rough. Rats are strong smart animals.

    One of the trapps snapped and you could hear the rat crying and screaming for a long while. My girlfriend at the time was an anamial lover and she freeked out and was ugly.

    I am going to move into an old family house w/ skunks and rats in a few weeks. As much as it hurts, all those skunks and rats are going to die, and thats just the way it is.

  • ….AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHH*@#$%!!
    That was great.
    Now substitute the subject “rat” with “illegal” and it would take on a whole new application.

  • Dear landlord,

    I am dismayed that you are choosing such a hostile act as poison to evict my family and I. If you continue in this course of action my family and I will be forced to declare jihad against you. Die you insolent american!! We will do our best to die inside walls where the stink of our moldering corpses will be as the sweet stench of Allah’s breath, and the most bothersome to you yankee scum. The kitchen wall behind the oven will be first, then the wall behind that new 52″ lcd flat panel sounds about right. Ohh, the irony. Imagine trying to watch my movie star cousin Ratatoulie while little abdul is stinking just inches from that nice warm lcd tv. Next would be where your bed goes against the wall. Every night you will be thinking of me, as you you try to go to sleep. Sleep well american scum.

    Fiesal

  • I had to email you and express what a fantastic writer you are. That was amazing. You had me giggling, choking up, and feeling such empathy for your plight. Very sincere and blunt at the same time. You’re doing the right thing, rats are definitely a danger to your health. Good luck, I hope you don’t hear the traps going off too much.

    • The guy who wanted to exchange “rats” for “illegals” is apparently a racist sonofabitch. The guy that wrote the Jihad response is obviously thinking of Fieval from the animated film “An American Tail”. People are so funny.

    Anyway, I do feel guilty, but like cockroaches, you can’t mess around. Once they’re in your house, it’s us or them. *sigh* Sometimes life isn’t fair. I have to do it, but I feel really bad.

    Close Call

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    OMG! I thought I might have killed my blog. And then I thought, holy crap! Five years of blogs and memories, gone, just like that! How could this have happened, you ask? Well, I have two domains. www.kristensimental.com and www.darkculture.net. The Dark Culture blog (formally a fully loaded webzine and formallly gothicpreservation.com) is located in the main directory. This blog is located in a sub-directory of darkculture.net in a folder named /blog. It had been a while since I’d updated the application that runs the Dark Culture blog, but in order to do that, I had to delete everything from the www.darkculture.net domain. Are you following me? Initially, when I switched the old Dark Culture Magazine format into the easy-to-update blog format, I did a hard install – which means I installed the application without any assistance from my host; which offers what they call “one click installs”. These are very handy because I don’t have to fiddle with any code and when updates are available, all I have to do it click a button. Simple.

    Because I’d done a hard install the first time around, this meant I couldn’t use the one click install application. Thus, in order to use it and make my life easier in the long term, I had to start fresh. Naturally, it had been a while since I’d done any backend work on Dark Culture, so I forgot the cardinal rule of updates. BACK UP, BACK UP, AND BACK UP! ALWAYS! I did not. Thus, I lost anything that had been posted to the new version of Dark Culture. Let’s forget about the last 10 years of content that is sitting somewhere gathering dust waiting to be restored and probably never will.

    So what does this all mean for Dark Culture? Not a whole lot, really. Frankly, my heart hasn’t been in Dark Culture for a while now. I enjoy doing the podcasts and occasionally posting news, but that’s about it. I can’t remember the last time I wrote a review and truth be told, Dark Culture has been half ass for a few years now. And that right there makes me sad. Dark Culture was always a labor of love. I tried making money at it, but it just never happened. I could never get enough advertising to simply pay for the hosting. Readership suffers when you make major changes or are down for long periods of time, so I can’t imagine all that many people read it on a regular basis. Statistics tell me that when I upload a new podcast, I get some good traffic – even if no one comments or gives me feedback. However, the way search engines a’plenty spider my site, it could just be fluff traffic and not anyone legitimate.

    *sigh* So what will become of Dark Culture? I recall spending countless hours working on the site, updating, chasing after writers, laboring over content…I remember staying up until the sun rose on some nights. I can’t put that kind of effort into it anymore and frankly, I don’t want to.

    Because Dark Culture was one of the first websites of it’s kind, I inspired numerous people to start their own webzines. That’s nice, but they’re a whole lot more excited about it than I am and they put in the effort. The writers I once had have all gone separate ways and wouldn’t come back if I asked them. I suppose I could find new writers, but just as it was then, it’s hard to find people who’ll work for nothing. Writing credit on a half ass webzine? I wouldn’t do it either. So here I am, at yet another cross-roads with Dark Culture. Part of me doesn’t want to let it go because I still hold some ideals for it. I’ve always dreamt of what it could have been, but never will. Besides, I’m not all that active in the Goth scene anymore – at least, not as much as I used to be. I still enjoy the music and hearing new bands, but I’m less inclined to write about them.

    Oh, this all makes me so sad. There was a point where Dark Culture was an amazing website, but it’s a shadow of it’s former self now. It’s been broken so many times, I don’t know if it can recover. I guess I’ll continue to make podcasts. Those make me happy and I love doing them. Now, to find the time.

    Over the years I’ve had numerous close calls with almost losing everything. Today I lost the latest incarnation of Dark Culture, but luckily this blog is in tact. It’s funny how our priorities shift over time. It also reminds me to back things up more. I mean, I was actually sweating while waiting for the site to re-upload. I thought, what am I going to do if I lose it all? I almost cried thinking about it. This blog is so much a part of me that I can’t envision living without it. I mean, if I had lost it, I would have lived, but I would have been really fucking depressed about it.

    A sigh of relief. I’m going to back up this blog once a month and never scare the shit out of myself again.

    Art Supplies for Rachel

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    Cruising Craiglist, as I do, I came across an interesting post that made me feel really bad. So I decided to take some action.

    Read this:

    I have been a photographer for the past 5 years. (www.rachelkemper.com) I have recently been involved in a car accident where not only my car, but by resources for creativity, and income (laptop, harddrive, camera) have been stripped away. Although I know there is always a way through and out of seemingly disasterous events. This one it seems, is not the event I can not escape, but the state of mind it has thrown me into. For with the right mindset, anything and everything is possible.

    We all come in to a point of our lives where depression can take over and everything seems meaningless. This time has throughout history been a time where creativity seems to be the only antidote.

    While photography has been my source of income for the past 5 years, I look at this place of emptiness as an opportunity to embrace other talents I have yet to explore.

    And so I ask of this.

    If you, or anyone you know may have any kind of art supplies that can be donated to help support the recovery of a human mind. I need help.

    I need to work. I need to feel like I’m creating something beautiful, regardless of how I feel..it is through creation and sharing that darkness can be transformed into light.

    I am asking for donations. My goal is to gain help in the therapy process so I can then bring myself to a place where I can pull myself through and out of the situation and get myself working again.

    Self reliance, I believe is a key character trait in any strong human being,
    as well, I believe, is knowing when to ask for help.

    Thank you.
    Rachel Kemper
    904.501.4124
    www.rachelkemper.com
    myspace.com/artistrachel

    If you can help her, you should. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose all my equipment after a horrible car-crash. I feel for her because she, like all artists, needs to remain creative. And oddly, it’s when we’re down that our most beautiful work blooms. She’s an amazing photographer and while I don’t know her personally, I sort of feel like we shutterbugs need to stick together.

    Nobody Won

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    I awoke this morning bright and early. I had a shoot in Downtown. I rushed out of the house, got in my car and started the engine. My brother drove up just at that second. I was supposed to pick him up, but I didn’t get his message that he was headed over. Good timing.

    We drove West on the 134, South on the 2, and then South on the 5. It’s the easiest way to Downtown from my house and I’ve driven it dozens of times. Driving and talking as we do, I always keep my eyes on the road. Suddenly, just up ahead, something small ran out ahead of us. At first I thought it was floating trash. A half second later, I realized it was a squirrel. I panicked. He was in my lane and I would surely roll him over. Hit him? Swerve? What do I do? I swerved. At that precise moment, the little squirrel had second thoughts, stopped, and turned to run back. I hadn’t taken into account that although there was a shoulder, a gutter ran along side it. My tires hit the gutter, slid on the gravel, and the car slammed into the wall, grazing and crashing as we went. Did I hit the brakes or did the car just stop? I can’t remember. Only seconds previous, that distinct thud you hear. I’d nailed the squirrel. As we sat on the shoulder, I checked my side mirror and there he was, absolutely mutilated.

    Shaking with adrenaline and only half listening to my brother berating me for making a poor judgment call, I finally screamed at him to give me a minute. When these things happen, you’re in such a state of shock that you really can’t think straight and have no idea how to proceed. Cars whizzed by us. The 5 Freeway is one of the busiest in California and I couldn’t get out on my side; not enough room. I asked my brother to check on the car. I was sure I’d totaled it. Seconds later, he showed me the hub-cap, slashed and broken to bits. He said it wasn’t that bad…or at least, it could have been worse. We stayed there a minute or two longer. The model called to let me know he was almost at the location. I talked to him calmly like I just hadn’t almost died and murdered a squirrel. OK. Drive. I had a shoot to do and the model was waiting.

    As we drove, I could feel that something was off. Later, we checked it out and the tire rim was bent in several places. At this point, I’m not sure what other damage has been done and I won’t know until Monday.

    Alright. So I know I shouldn’t have swerved. You have to understand, I’m a peace loving vegetarian with a fondness for small creatures. Naturally, my first instinct is “don’t kill the squirrel!!”. I thought I could make it. There was plenty of room on the shoulder, but I didn’t take into account the gutter or that the little guy would head back. You’d think that after hitting the wall and wrecking the car, the little dude would have lived. I guess even if I hadn’t killed him, the car behind me would have. He was toast no matter how you look at it. Of course, I didn’t quite think that far as I wrenched the steering wheel.

    My brother says I also hit my knee when we crashed, but I don’t recall that. My knee inexplicably began hurting during the shoot, so I guess I must have. My back hurts, my knee hurts, my car’s in the shop, I’m exhausted, and the squirrel is dead. In the grand scheme of things, better him than me, but I still feel bad. I’d never run over an animal before. It’s a very unpleasant experience.

    And After One Year…

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    It’s hard to believe it’s already been an entire year since my Dad died. 365 days, four seasons. It may as well have been 10 years. I can still hear his voice, see his face, and I still think about him everyday. Lately I’ve been looping one moment in my head. A few years before my Dad moved to Albuquerque, I used to visit him once or twice a week since he lived 10 minutes from my work. I’d walk into the house and start gabbing about whatever and would rummage through his fridge and cabinets for food. My brother would be around and we’d start jabbering. Within a few minutes, my Dad would always say, “Aren’t you gonna say hi to your old man?“, I’d laugh and say “Oh yeah, hi Dad” and give him a big hug. My Dad gave really big, strong hugs. He used to be a pretty buff guy in his day and even his old age, you could tell those arms used to be guns. As a child, I would hang on his arms and he’d lift me up. That’s like, 50 pounds of kid right there. My Dad was strong, so you can imagine what it was like to see him frail, gaunt, and pale.

    They say the first year is the hardest. Here I am at the anniversary of my Dad’s death and yeah, the first year’s been pretty hard. I couldn’t sleep last night. I tossed and turned and got up several times. I was thinking about today and thinking about the today of a year ago. I recall that night so vividly. We stayed at the hospital pretty late the night of the 3rd, but the nurse gathered up the family spilling out into the hallway and told us he’d lasted longer than they thought he would, that he was holding on for us, that it might be a good idea if we leave him be and allow him to pass. Most of us when home. I was exhausted. I hit the bed at the hotel and knocked out. An hour later, the phone rang. It was my sister. He’s gone, she said. My boyfriend and I rushed over to the hospital. I was in shock and couldn’t talk. I remember how bitter cold it was that early morning. I walked into the room and my knees gave out and I fell to the floor. I can’t recall ever feeling more devastated than at that moment. Devastated, there he was, there he wasn’t. You know how in the movies, one guy will hit another guy in his kidneys from the back and the victim falls swiftly down? I don’t know if that move is called anything specific, but it seems to work pretty well. Apparently, getting hit in your kidneys from the back is pretty bad. That’s how it felt.

    In the year that’s passed, I’ve struggled with getting on with my life and dealing with a crippling blow. In the year since my Dad died, I’ve turned a year older, moved into a new house, lost my grandpa, and lost my job. It’s been rough, but everyday, I try to get up and battle the depression that could set in quiet easily if I let it. There are still good days and bad days. Some days are better than others, but everyday he’s on my mind. Last night I really wondered if there was a heaven or some place we go when we die. People have said my Dad’s in heaven now, but I wonder. Not that he would have gone to the other place, but do either really exist?

    I don’t know. It’s been a shit year. There were some good days in there somewhere, I know, but one year feels like ten and I’m tired.