My Dead Dad’s Fashion Line

nice muscle shirts to go with a father's day spiral

When he passed away, my father left behind a lot of things.

To him, every single thing was too potentially valuable to discard. Old computer speakers, clothing stained and ripped from years working as a plumber, the branded swag you get free with a 24-case of beer, a broken-down van, an impressive collection of expired food, and a million little scraps of paper on which he had written his big ideas.

And among all his get-rich-quick schemes and doodles of potential inventions, there was something unexpected: notes for a fashion line.

DESIGN

MEN’S SHORTS

WITH TURNED-UP CUFFS

SHORT SHORTS WITH DEERHIDE OR LEATHER POCKETS, LIGHT IN COLOUR - LIKE SHAMMIE MATERIAL

NICE MUSCLE SHIRTS TO GO WITH THEM

GET PANTS FROM SALLY ANN TO GET STARTED (GO FOR A GOV GRANT)

SHIRTS TO HAVE DANGEROUS ANIMALS ON BACK # ON FRONT

-DRAGON

-WOLVERINE

-LION OR TIGER (WOMEN)

(Followed by some things we think he wanted to ask my sister to Google for him)

Is it just me or did my Dad have something here? Kind of an incredible vibe, to say nothing of him predicting the return of short shorts for men.

If you’ve been here a while, you know my father passed away in September, and that, like him, our relationship was complicated. I sometimes feel self-conscious about how often I’ve mentioned his death here; imagining a faceless reader thinking, “Oh god, not the dead dad again.”

Since September, I’ve been living in this strange place on the other side of ‘major loss.’ Those of us who live here recognize each other instantly. We know something about being human that we didn’t before. If you haven’t arrived yet, you will. A long, full life eventually leads everyone to this place.

I keep thinking about the first friend who had to come here way too early, who crossed over with no one for company, no one to say, “I know. It’s so fucking weird over here.”

I thought I knew about grief from watching those friends, and from P.S. I Love You, from Joan Didion, and maybe even from having my heart badly broken by someone who didn’t die, but also didn’t love me back when I loved them.

(But whoops turns out, I didn’t.)

Father’s Day was always the day I made my jokes. Jokes to ease the tension I felt about not having a “traditional” father-daughter relationship. And this year, I assumed I would deal with the discomfort in the same way.

Please see below for some examples of my 2014 work, which my sister and mother absolutely loved (they are the two (only) commenters on the second post).

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I even planned the joke for this year: a screen recording of me finally accepting my father’s Facebook friend request. But as I started recording and saw his little profile picture, my heart twisted, just a little, like the turn you make to shimmy out of a cramped airplane row. But enough that the joke wasn’t funny anymore.

I was in the park while my daughter played when I was doing this, and the twisted up heart wasn’t so severe an ailment that I began to cry, or experience anything that would have necessitated us leaving. But it began a bothering that lingered and stretched itself through the day I usually spent making jokes. And eventually it had grown to the point where my eyes didn’t work properly, and instead of fixing on things, I looked right through them and into my memories of my dad, all tidied up of tough feelings now that he’s gone.

Another strange thing about losing someone: it’s possible to stop feeling angry, even if you remember exactly why you were. The logic stays, but the feeling itself is gone. You don’t need it anymore. There’s no boundary left to defend, and your brain is happy to reallocate the resources elsewhere to living people it still needs to protect you from.

And that part is nice because when you look back, the memories are just things that happened, not things that hurt. But it can be confusing because then you wonder why you did what you did as a result of the hurt, until your husband reminds you that you didn’t always feel as you feel today.

So my heart was all twisted, and my eyes weren’t working right, and then my legs and arms got heavy, like lead, and I didn’t want to be where I was anymore. But I wasn’t crying or anything, which is what you’d expect and would honestly be a feeling I’d prefer. Instead, it was just this weird-ass feeling all through my body. And then I started to worry that the feeling would linger for a long time, so bothering as it was. And the worrying made it worse, turning my breathing to gulping and gasping. And it wasn’t until later, when I was perfectly safe at home, that I could finally have my small healing cry. And I wished that I could have had it back in the park when I decided the joke wasn’t funny, and maybe never would be again.

But that's yet another thing I’ve learned about grief. That it’s a bothering that comes out of nowhere or somewhere (but not always where you’d expect) and that it takes however long it takes to pass through.

Or at least that’s how grief feels for me.

So my dad left this plan for a fashion line. I assume it was an idea he meant to pitch to me, but he never did. Talking to me wasn’t always easy for him. But thinking of me? That, I think, came easier. And I’m glad to find evidence of those times.

I don’t think I’ll ever bring my dad’s fashion line to life. I have his inventive mind, which means I also have a surplus of my own ideas to chase.

But I will wear his old overalls, which, somehow, fit me perfectly.