Unsent Letters #15

Four Forty-Four

Photo by Tim Hüfner on Unsplash

Dear Dad,

I lost count of the times I’ve woken in the middle of the night overwhelmed by the urgency to call you. I fumble for the light, pick up the phone, notice it’s 4:44, tap on your number, realize you don’t exist, and hang up. It’s four forty-four, every time.

Maybe because that last call, the day before you passed, was so reassuring. You knew how to be reassuring. And comforting, positive, and funny. Things always fall into place, eventually; like that game I saw you play once, what’s it called? Yes, Tetris. That one. Where you do some little maneuvering and pieces settle exactly where they belong, you said. Preoccupations vanish, problems get solved, missed opportunities return. I catch myself craving those words of yours. They were medicine.

Every anniversary of your passing, Mom arranges for a memorial mass to be held here in the village. She coordinates with Father Giorgio on the timing, and that's that. Last time around, as agreed, she shows up at church at eight in the morning and nobody’s there. After forty-five minutes, she gets a text from Father Giorgio saying that he slept in and doesn’t feel well and is terribly sorry. She goes back home disappointed; kind of mad, I’d say. Although, you know Mom -- she’s unable to really be mad at anyone. She may pretend to be, but deep down she never is.

Turns out the guy had been eating like a hippopotamus with no end in sight, going around visiting devouts during Easter week. And of course, in these small towns, when the parish priest shows up at someone’s place for Easter blessings, they offer him things to eat and drink. So, apparently, Father Giorgio had eaten too much and was unable to get out of bed. Couldn’t he text you before you left home, saying that he was not going to make it to church? I ask. You’re right, she says, that’s not very kind of him, adding to her fake rage. Also, sleeping in sounds suspicious, I think. When you have digestion issues you can’t really sleep. I’m not sure I told Mom this last bit. Maybe I kept it to myself.

After a while, the doorbell rings. I open, but no one’s there. On the floor, a vase filled with what look like yellow daisies has a small envelope stapled to its plastic wrap. It’s from Father Giorgio. On the card, all sorts of apologies are hurriedly scribbled. He has childish handwriting. Now Mom has the excuse to stop pretending she’s mad, and step back into her real self. Suddenly, Father Giorgio is such a kind and considerate priest. Even after screwing up the one day of the year he’s supposed to get right.      

Me, I don’t really care that your memorial mass didn’t take place. And neither do you. But Mom’s into this big time, and she does care. I feel bad for her. Later that same morning, as planned, we go to the cemetery to visit you. As if you lived there. 

Mom gets fresh flowers from the kiosk at the entrance, while I go park the car. We then walk together uphill to our family tomb. I like going to cemeteries, especially on a weekday, when it’s deserted. I like reading the names and the dates of birth and death of the deceased, and looking at their photos. And fantasizing about their life stories. 

When we get there, Mom unlocks the black iron gate and steps in to change the flowers. Hi!, she says out loud, saluting you and all the others buried there: grandpa Silvio, grandma Erminia, aunt Maria, uncles Pietro, Guido, Luigi, among others. And little Marco. I always think about him when I’m there: he passed when he was five months, remember? I was just a kid when it happened, but I do very clearly. If it’s true that the deceased are forever the age they passed at, then the only advantage of dying young has to be to remain young forever. Five months is a little too young though. My friend Saverio passed at fifteen. Such a wrong age to die; such a nice age to be forever.

Is everybody well at the cemetery? I always ask Mom, joking, when she goes on her own. I gave up discussing the uselessness of thinking of cemeteries as the house of the dead. She obviously knows that’s B.S.. Everybody does. And yet she pretends to believe (like many others) that they actually live there, and that people go visit them, and that they’re there doing nothing all day and night, waiting for their loved ones. I don’t care, I like to think this way, she said to me once. Which, by the way, is in contradiction with our collective, popular idea that one, once dead, flutters around as a ghost, going everywhere and seeing everything and passing through walls. It’s hard to reconcile this idea -- as weird as it sounds -- with that about the dead being stuck at the cemetery, forever trapped in their remains, having tea in their tombs, in conversation with others. 

Anyway, I didn’t want to write this letter just to recount what we do on the anniversary of your passing day, although I guess you would want to know. I would, one day. Life continues to give me signals of you. The time I wake at night is one of them. It was April 4th, when you passed. April is your month of birth and death. And this April, it’s been four years since your passing. Four has become an important number for me. 

Sometimes, when I’m watching TV, I hear a comment of yours, or a joke, about whatever they’re showing that very moment. It feels like you’re seated right there, beside me, on your armchair. You used to do that a lot. To comment while watching TV with me. I used to hate it -- I could hardly follow the show with your chit chat in the background. Then, at some point, you’d fall asleep, and the silence felt as liberating as it felt surreal. Now I don’t know what I’d give to have you beside me again, with your voice over what’s on TV. 

Loss is the conduit for appreciating what we thought we disliked.

I will continue to wake at 4:44, with the irresistible urge to call you. And I will continue to live those few seconds in a parallel dimension where you still exist. Until I get pulled back and you no longer do. Maybe one night you’ll answer the phone, and tell me in that soothing voice of yours that everything will be okay. 

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"Unsent Letters" is a series released every other week. These are imaginary letters to fictitious or real individuals who may or may not have influenced my life, not always mirroring actual events.

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