Life.

If there is one topic that is clichéd over and over again today it is death. Every romance novel, soap opera, and episode of Oprah is full of untimely deaths and its aftereffects. However, cheesy background music and mood lighting aside, nothing changes a life quite like the abrupt end of someone else’s. Tragedies are inevitable. It is when they occur that is the surprise. 1

My dad died when I was ten years, four months, and twenty-eight days old. It was ten days before the terrorist attacks of September eleventh. It was forty-three days after I found him sick on his bedroom floor. It was the day that almost everything about who I m today, good and bad, was formed. 2

For my entire childhood, I moved. Being the daughter of two Methodist ministers, I was used to packing up for a new town every June; I thought it was something all average families did. Although I was born in Morgantown, we moved several times before settling in Weirton, West Virginia the summer before I started fifth grade. The whole family loved it there-it was close to my crazy Italian relatives in Pittsburgh, my parents both had nice church congregations, and we finally lived close enough to my school for me to walk to it alone like the independent ten year old that I was. The town was a good fit for us.3

When July rolled around, we were just getting settled: the boxes were mostly unpacked, the neighbors had stopped bringing casseroles, and the awkwardness of starting again had not yet worn off. Everything seemed to be falling into place. Which is why it all inevitably began to fall apart. 4

My dad was a whiner, a trait that I inherited completely. He whined about anything- the drapes were too sheer, the car was too messy, his head hurt. His head always hurt. The only thing he complained about more than his head was exercise. When my mom suggested we go for a healthy walk one July night, no one was surprised when he clutched his head and cried headache. So we left him at home alone for a few hours. When we got home, I went to his room and found him lying on the floor in his underwear. Even sick, he wanted to be the presentable pastor he was: he was changing to look better for the emergency room staff. Who the hell does that? 5

The details of the following six weeks are jumbled; my ten year old self didn’t process everything very well. He got worse. He got better. He got worse. He got better. He died. I went to his funeral. My sister got angry. My brother got quiet. I got perpetually sad. Then I grew up.6

For the past eight years of my life I have tried to overcome the loss of my dad, of half of my very self. I have shut myself off from emotions, preferring to present myself as a happy go-getter. I turned to humor, laughing about everything and reacting to nothing. I live life as best as I can, ignoring Father’s Day and the other holes that were ripped wide open on September first. Do I handle his death the best way? No. But I handle it the way that I do so that I can cope and swim rather than wallow and sink. 7

As I enter college, a scared eighteen year old walking my dad’s alma mater, I am reminded of him everywhere. And I hate it. And I love it. And I survive every day because I know that I can. More importantly, I survive to turn the clichéd burden of death that I have been given into another, even better cliché: a happy ending. 8