Counting the Days It Rains

 This is an excerpt from the book “I Have No Business Being Here” - available now. Read the whole collection here.

You can never miss someone all at once. Maybe that's better so we don't die of broken hearts. I miss my dad in subtle, simple ways that come on suddenly and rush around me like a north wind and hit me in my bones.

I miss him with something simple like the smell of gasoline on my hands after filling my car up. When I was a kid, I'd take any chance I could get to go with him anywhere – to the gas station, to the auto store. Rubber car floor mats and 10W40 oil and gasoline smells remind me of being waist-high in an auto parts store, overwhelmed by the aisles of foreign objects, containers of fluids, and car tires. The pressure gauges were my favorite. I loved sliding the plastic indicator in and out like a slide whistle.

Fall weather and rain remind me of him. He kept a huge calendar on the corkboard in the kitchen where he tracked when it rained. He would write "RAINED TODAY" in the little white squares on the month's page. "RAN SPRINKLERS" on others, to track the amount of moisture on the grass.

Football season makes me miss him. Although, I believe when we truly love someone, any word can be related to them in a linked chain of thoughts. In improv, they call it A-to-C thinking – "A makes me think of B, which makes me think of C." Helps you get to a more creative idea. But when we miss someone, it's a cruel trick that lets your brain jump from garage door to dad. Some memories are a direct route, though. Football is one of those.

Daddy would watch any football game, old or new, but he particularly loved the Dallas Cowboys. He and I would talk about games on the phone the day after they happened. I should rephrase that so as not to overstate my football knowledge. He would talk; I would listen. He omitted any jargon and told me about plays in plain terms. I did the same with the law. He was interested in the legal system, always desperately wanting to be chosen for a jury. Complex cases fascinated him. I loved explaining legal issues of procedure or jurisdiction to him. Much like my explanations didn't make him a lawyer, his explanations never made me a football expert.

He particularly loved cold fronts and weather changes, even when they blew leaves into the garage. So when I woke up this morning and a cold front had blown through, it made me miss him again. To help with that, I turned on a Dallas Cowboys podcast. I had no clue what I was hearing. Maybe the more I listen, the more I'll learn. Maybe I need to make flashcards.

Cars are another thing that make me think of him. When I left work on my first day back from bereavement leave, I scraped my car on a pole. My first instinct was to grab my phone and call him. But I couldn't. So instead, I called mom, then my brother-in-law. But those calls didn't help, so I wept the whole drive home.

In the garage, I pulled myself together and reminded myself that my parents didn't raise a helpless damsel in distress. They raised me. So I mashed the Google button on my phone and said desperately into the microphone, "I scratched my car. What do I do?"

The pleasant AI voice reading from the first page of search results said, "Most scratches can be removed with whitening toothpaste." I grabbed a roll of paper towels and some Windex to clean the spot. The scratch was huge. My car had basically hugged a concrete pillar as big around as a tree trunk. I went inside and brought back a tube of Crest Whitening with Scope + Cavity Protection. I was not sure whether the cavity protection would help, but I thought for sure it couldn't hurt.

Using a soft cloth, I went to work. There on the concrete floor of the garage, in my dress pants and blouse and leather work shoes, I slathered my car in toothpaste. With both hands, I rubbed in vigorous circles over and over. The white streaks on my car's blue paint started to fade. The scratches lightened then disappeared. Little by little, the door panel returned to its smooth surface. It smelled minty fresh and would no longer be susceptible to cavities, tartar or plaque.

The heat from the engine and the humidity from the open garage door had sweat pouring down my face and back. But I worked through it, determined not to be incapacitated by my grief. I couldn't bring my dad back by rubbing toothpaste into my car door, but I could ensure he did his job before leaving. He and my mom raised a woman capable of helping herself with a little muscle and sweat, a Google search and the last half of a tube of Crest.

That's how I'll remember him. With every problem I fix myself, every cold front blowing through, and by counting the days that it rains.

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