Today is my dad's birthday. If he was still alive, he'd be 86.
For whatever reason, this morning when I woke up I was thinking about his absence in a different way. What about the positive things that have happened that might NOT have if he had lived longer? When I think of my siblings at large, I can hypothesize about the good choices/decisions everyone has made since 2001 which were born of losing him.
For me, one thing's for sure: if my father had still been alive when I first came to France in 2001, I would never have stayed a second year after the Fulbright.
My first year in Nice was one of change. My flight out of DC was 2 days after the airports re-opened after 911 in September, 4 months after Dad's death. A feeling of anything can happen was prevalent, and so at 31 I walked away from DC, my life there, and turned toward a new risk that was definitely, though unconsciously at the time, fueled by having lost my father.
If cancer hadn't taken him, I would have come back on that plane at the end of the Fulbright and taken up my life again, too afraid to plunge into the abyss of the unknown and building a life abroad.
Brave, or stupid? But I remember thinking I had nothing to lose. Had I not decided one year was not enough, I would never have met Thomas, and would never have embarked on this wild, challenging, interesting, self-defining adventure of living, working, and raising children in a foreign country, language and culture. My father was nothing if not independent, and living overseas, totally anonymously, has made me not necessarily successful but fiercely independent, more productive, courageous, and persistent.
Every cloud has a silver lining - Happy birthday anyway, Dad! May your wishes come true.
