July 26th, 2023, my father, Jerry Lee Taylor, passed away from cancer. The nature, situation, and events surrounding his death I could drag out for several paragraphs, but suffice to say via machinations of his second wife, I missed his funeral, wasn’t included in the obit as one of the surviving relatives, and a host of other ugly things. She and I won’t be on speaking terms any time soon, but having fully exercised her pettiness, there’s nothing more she can do now. He’s interred, and she’ll soon be just a bad memory.

As of this post, my father’s been dead slightly more than a week. When I was informed 10 days ago he was dying, every minute crawled. The longest week of my life culminated in the longest day of my life when I finally learned of his death (discovered by my sister online).

When I think back on my father’s life and the ups and downs in our relationship, there’s plenty of opportunity to find fault with how both of us handled things, but near the of his life, my father and I had reached a detente of sorts: he wouldn’t mention details of my life, I wouldn’t haul out ugly bits of his.

So his weekly Sunday phone calls thus encompassed the weather, how things were going, the usual banter between moderate acquaintances. We never spoke too deeply about anything, but mere cordiality was enough; certainly far more than we’d had in years prior.

I wouldn’t say I’m numb, but I haven’t determined or surmised how I feel yet, at least not completely. Certainly some sadness punctuated by somber moments of reflection. People wonder, for having missed his funeral, have I found closure. I don’t know if I would’ve reached it any faster had I stared down at a box in the ground, as I had with his father.

His second wife’s pettiness hurt, but that can be overcome, and as mentioned, she’ll eventually be just a bad memory, and eventually a vague one. As far as my father goes, there’s no great wound, no great regret. Was he a perfect father? No. Far from it, and I definitely was no perfect son. But we never got completely estranged, and toward the end I do think we genuinely cared about each other, regardless how anyone outside the relationship of the two of us might characterize it.

Reaching peace with this will take time. I’m sure I’ll find it.