They say you marry a person who resembles the parent you need to work your mental stuff out with. While growing up I never thought I had any unfinished business to work out with my dad- apparently, subconsciously I must have- because I literally married my father. Okay- not literally but I married a man who on a daily basis as he does something my dad would TOTALLY do I start to sing, “Larry Chapman”.
I also refer to his actions as “Larry Chapmans”. Why do I even bring this up now- because there are these moments in time that it hits me like a ton of bricks that my dad is gone. Even though I joke about his idiosyncracies (like the fact that both he and my husband would inspect the garbage and ask whether “things really need to be trashed”) I miss him. And my Dad, like my husband, was a TOTAL Archie Bunker. He hated posers, he had no patience for dishonesty and there were just a handful of people that made him smile. One of those people was Joan Rivers. He loved her potty mouth, her raunchy-no-holds-barred-I-am-going-to-say-it-like-it-is-because-life-is-too-damn-short-to-care-that-much-about-anything. I think in some ways he identified with her ability to use humor to mask incredible sadness and to laugh at herself before anyone else could. Her passing, a bit like his, felt all at once too soon. Unlike my dad though- who was plagued by health problems-she was still very much at the top of her game. But I think when we lose someone- whether we know it is coming- or it is like a jerk to our senses- we never feel like we had enough time with them. I’ve always felt like I just wanted one more day- one more hour, even just ten more minutes to talk to my dad. To sit with him and watch Joan Rivers do her shtick and laugh our asses off because she made us feel like it was all going to be okay.
Seeing all the beautiful tributes and the legacies to the talent that was Joan Rivers- made me feel wistful about the fact that my dad isn’t here. And about the fact that we need to say all these wonderful things about the people we love when they are still here. And then Bryce Gruber shared this excerpt from what I believe was Joan’s wishes about what she hoped her funeral ( should that day ever arrive) would be like-and even in her death (the way I use my dad’s humor on a daily basis to deal with his gaping absence) made me feel like I hope some way and some how their souls meet.
Because I really think that Joan would get Larry. And Larry would TOTALLY get Joan.
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