Today marked my father's sixteenth birthday spent up in Heaven. I have a singular home video that contains him in it; it's a short one, maybe five minutes long altogether, and I've seen it about ten thousand times. The year is 1991, New Years Eve, and my whole family is gathered at my uncle's house for a celebratory party and to watch the ball drop. My grandmother holds the camera, as evidenced by the fact that everyone grins and says, "Hey Shirley!" into the lens as they walk by. The camera moves constantly, occasionally focusing on someone as they speak into it, and it's one minute in before I finally catch a glimpse of my dad, who holds a cup up and says, "Soda for me tonight." He's wearing a purple button-up and a gold chain around his neck, and his dark hair matches my own in all but length, parted in the middle and groomed for the party. He says those four short words with a smile under a thick mustache, and his voice is gentle, happy, content. As a one-year-old, I toddle in front of the camera as it moves to the next room to get everyone in motion. My aunt laughs so loudly in the background that my grandmother swivels around to find her, and she strikes a pose in her cute black dress and chirps, "Hi ma!" with a red solo cup in her hand, a thick and fluffy 90's hairdo, and that Northern accent that's unmistakably her. There's music playing, something funky and fast, loud and all-encompassing. My dad walks past the lens unexpectedly, and 21 years in the future I hang onto that movement, follow it until he's out of sight once more, fixated on the screen for another peek.
The video stops and starts back up a moment later, but this time it's ten seconds until the ball drops and my grandmother is pointing the camera directly at my mom, who is holding me in her arms, and my dad who stands beside her. I'm drinking milk from a bottle, holding it all on my own, and my dad leans over and kisses my cheek. I lean further into my mom, for some reason I cannot fathom now trying to duck out of the way of the kiss, but it still lands, and my dad smiles before turning to watch the ball on the television as people start counting down for it to fall.
When it finally falls and people scream out their excitement and wishes for a great new year, my dad lifts his pinky at the video camera, grins, and says, "Happy New Year!" People go around the room kissing each other on the cheek and repeating that phrase over and over again, and I catch two more glimpses of my dad, who tells my aunt, "I almost forgot about you!" as he kisses her cheek, and then again when he says the same thing to my grandmother and leans so close to the camera it's impossible to see for a second as he pecks her on the cheek as well.
The screen goes black. A new home video starts moments later, one where my sister and I are dancing with pompoms to some Dirty Dancing music. The video with my dad in it is over.
It's always been a pretty personal experience for me to watch that video on both the day he was born and on the day when he died, I guess as a sort of silent acknowledgement of his life and of the memories people have of him, the memories that keep him alive in our hearts. Unfortunately, I don't have any real memories of him at all - I have only the stories my family has told me about him, that home video I re-watch every year, and the handful of pictures where he's lounging about with my mom or uncle. I never really watched it with anyone else on this day, preferring to keep to my bedroom and have it as sort of a memory that's only his and mine. But I have to say, I'm glad that my husband joined me this year and watched it with me. We sat on the floor in front of the tv together and just enjoyed the moment, and afterward, we talked. About memories, about loved ones lost, about unfair deaths, about what my dad and I would talk about if he were alive today and I sent him a birthday phone call - we just talked, and it lessened the sting of loss to know that no matter what we go through or what has already happened, we're here for each other and we're in this whole life thing together.
Of course, we couldn't stay somber and serious for long, and we were already on the floor, so a wrestling match quickly arose. My husband and I tried tickling each other, then I got out of his hold and we ran around the living room, trying to catch each other. When my husband ran off suddenly toward the stairs and then took to them two at a time to reach the bedroom before me, I knew I couldn't catch him, and so I went at a more leisurely pace. The bedroom door was shut when I arrived at it - not really thinking that he might have locked it, I pressed against the door handle, shoved with my whole body, and -
POP. The door slammed open harder than I expected. I sort of stumbled into the room, and my husband gaped openly at me for a second before saying, "What?! What did you just do?!"
So long story short, we discovered today that our bedroom door doesn't really lock too well. We both locked ourselves out of it moments later, and he said, "Watch how cool I am!" before kicking it open with a backwards flying kick.
... Gotta admit, it looked pretty cool. =)
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