Moses Supposes And A Moody Tuesday

Tomorrow is going to be an odd day.  Outside of the fact that it is 1-1-11 (which I don’t find all that interesting anyways), it is the one year anniversary of my God Father passing away.  I don’t know what shocks me more, the fact that there is still no resolve regarding the circumstances of how he passed, or the fact that it’s already been a whole year.

When I found out that he had died, I was on my way to Tapas with Courtney.  My mother had called me to give me the news, before I saw it on TV or read it in the papers.  I can’t explain my reaction to finding out – I hadn’t seen or talked to my God Father in years, since I was 8 or 9 years old.  I immediately felt guilty that I wasn’t more upset.  I wanted to be really heartbroken, but I didn’t know the guy.  And he definitely didn’t know me.  I got off the phone with my mom, and continued on with my evening of sangria and small Mexican appetizers.

A few days later I sat myself down at a computer and forced myself to read some of the articles about what had happened.  I got angry before I got sad.  I got defensive before I even took the time to get to know the man he had become.  People had such horrible things to say about what was right and wrong, and whether or not he “deserved” what had happened to him.  I wanted to preserve the few good memories that I had of him, but it was frustrating holding on to so little when so many people had so much to say.

The funeral was the first time I was meeting his son, and the first time in a long while I would be seeing his wife and brother (neither of which I actually remembered).  I held myself together pretty well on the way there.  I was way more distracted by how much I hate funeral homes (the smell has always bothered me, and praying at an open casket when you don’t normally pray or necessarily believe in God is very forced and uncomfortable).  I felt myself start to crack when his wife first saw me and my parents walk in.  She lit up when she saw my mom, and it was then it became real to me that this man had, at one time, a very close relationship with my family.  He was my father’s best friend for a while, and apparently my mother coached his wife through her pregnancy.

I didn’t know these things.  I knew he was my God Father, and I have one very cute picture of me sitting on his lap at my first birthday.  But I had heard more about why he wasn’t in my life in the years I remember than I what I knew of the kind of person he was when my parents appointed him my “God Father”.  He was a band director (which is quite fitting to where I’ve ended up in life), and he touched so many students with his passion for music.  He was, before he had gotten sick, a dedicated father, husband and friend.  But I just knew him as the guy who had gotten sick, and it was better to have him out of my life than in it.

I’m thankful that I went to the funeral.  And it opened my parents, my dad especially, up about talking about the person he was when he came into their lives.  Flash forward 6 months later, and I had a great conversation with my boss who knew my God Father very well.  He had such warm things to say about the band director he was, and how motivated he was to get band programs in any school he could get himself into.  Such a small world that I would end up working for a man who used to go jogging with Danny.

So it’s been a year.  And I think about him all the time.  I wish he could meet me now, see the person I have become.  I think he would understand better than anyone else the demons one deals with everyday on the inside, while trying to keep face on the outside.  He was a broken man that never had the chance to get his life back together.  Maybe he never would have, maybe he was a lost soul and forever would be.  I like to think that with more time, and enough love, he could have gotten back some semblance of a family and closeness before he went.  At least be around long enough for me to know who he was first hand, not through stories that came way too late for me.

And if that wasn’t heavy enough, tomorrow also marks the 4 year anniversary of meeting my most important ex boyfriend.  You know, the one who “got away”.  Or I got away from.  Either way you spin it, it was a very important relationship for me to have.  And I can’t help but get nostalgic about how great it was in the beginning.  4 years ago tomorrow I got kissed in a way that I will never forget.  He made my knees weak, and my heart race.  I remember driving home from his house that night feeling like I was going to pass out and vomit all at the same time, because everything felt so intense.  Much like that night, our whole relationship was intense.  From start to finish, rinse and repeat for 2 and a half years.

It’s a new year.  And Danny will continue to force me to ask myself a million questions I’ll never have answers to.  So will Andy for that matter.  But both men, respectively, have changed me for the better. 

I’m proud to work in the field that I do.  I know Danny is looking down on me and smiling that I am helping kids fall in love with music the same way he sought out for them to do many years ago.  And I’m proud that I can look back at my relationship with Andy and smile about all the great memories we have together.  January 11^th will always be a strange day for me, so tomorrow instead of sulking I’ll be celebrating.  Celebrating a man I wish I could’ve known, and my own personal Hank Moody.  Cheers.