Father's Day

Father's Day...yippee.  


There are the commercials, the sales and the restaurant specials. There are the blessings in church, the messages to dads on Facebook and the articles about celebrity dads. For crying out loud, there is even a "Happy Father's Day" message when you call directory assistance. Seems there is no escaping this thing called Father's Day. 


This was our second Father's Day without Chris. That is twice as many as we had with him. Yesterday was a tough day for me. As with most significant dates and holidays, the anticipation of the day is usually worse than the actual day. I didn't want to make any plans for today (sorry, dad) because I didn't know how I was going to feel. Turns out, it was bearable.


I decided this morning that we should take a picnic lunch to the cemetery. The kids haven't been there since last Father's Day and, obviously, they didn't remember that visit. I wasn't sure how to prepare Ian this year since he still doesn't understand who daddy was or that he is dead. I was a little nervous that this could start a flood of questions. I haven't faced this yet and am very anxious about the day when he will start putting the pieces together. So, I told him we were going to a place called a cemetery and that it was like a park where we could remember Daddy. His response..."ok." Whew...that was easy.

We stopped to get flowers for the grave along the way. As luck would have it, the florist had musical instrument Christmas ornaments on sale and, most importantly, this included a tuba. This might seem random and off topic, but that is because you haven't heard that Ian is currently obsessed with tubas. He "plays" the tuba a lot while "marching" in his band (in case you are wondering, he is obsessed with marching bands too). So, we left the florist with flowers, a DAD balloon and a miniature tuba. He pretended to play that tuba the whole way to the cemetery.


The weather was beautiful when we got there and the kids had a blast running around in all the grass. We spread our picnic blanket out right on top of Chris's grave so that it sort of felt like he was joining us for lunch. It was going great until Ian said, "Mommy!  Spider!" and pointed to my shoulder. After three furious attempts by Granny and lots of hushed swearing by me, the creepy creature was finally removed from the premises.


Once we were done eating, we put the flowers and balloon next to Chris's grave marker. "Do you see that name here?," I said to Ian. "It says Christopher Diez. Do you know who that is?"

"Yep.  Me!"

"No. You are Ian Diez. Daddy is Christopher Diez."

"Oh. Yes!," and he skipped over to a tree.    


I then attempted to have a moment alone with Chris while my mom took the kids back to the car. Ian, who doesn't like to go anywhere without Mommy, came running back to the grave and sat in my lap.  


"Why you staying here, Mommy?" 


"I'm praying for Daddy."


"Oh." And then he went back to playing his tuba.  


So much for the pieces coming together!  The kid barely knows his own name!


This is us without you, Chris. Happy Father's Day.