Little things

What it is is a baby-food jar. The lid was painted red. It's got a little plastic deer stuck inside, plus some water and something meant to be snowflakes. What it is is a snowglobe that I must've made for my dad in first grade. On the bottom (the lid) it has my name and the year: "1973." For over 25 years, that silly little snowglobe sat on my dad's desk. I don't know why he kept it that long, he wasn't a man for tchotchkes. But there it was when he retired a few years ago, in with his office stuff. And there it was, in a small plush stocking, in the box my mom sent with our Christmas presents. I knew what it was without looking inside. I couldn't, quite. Last night I took it out to show M this goofy thing I'd made when I was five, the year he was born. Somehow I ended up having a little weep on the bed with the pets and my dad's old flannel shirt, which hangs in the back of my closet behind my coats. I used to wear his sweaters when it was cold. They reached to mid-thigh on me and the sleeves dangled to my kneees, even in high school. I wish I could go home to be with my mom for Christmas, and yet still do the right thing for my own little family here. I wish I could stop it from still hurting all of us that dad isn't here. I wish I didn't know that staying here is the right thing, I wish I didn't know that I did the best I could to love my mom and dad despite everything -- and I wish I didn't know that mom will still be sad, that there are still things I wish I'd said to him, and that nothing that I could've done would've helped my dad not be so terribly lonely for so much of his life. And nothing will help my mom not be lonely now. I miss the illusion that life somehow gets easier as you grow up. I miss clear-cut black-and-white decisions. I miss my daddy. For months, I haven't been hit with that piercing grief that was there in the early days since Dad died. I thought I was doing pretty well with it all -- and I am. But sometimes it's the little things that matter most. That snowglobe mattered to my dad. That matters to me.