LOSS

by Bella Belsova

"my father moved through dooms of love

through sames of am through haves of give,

singing each morning out of each night

my father moved through depths of height"

The school I went to, the one my father insisted I go to, despite mounting household expenses and lay-offs and, what was it, "easy credit rip offs," they made me, that glorious (now) school, memorize e.e. cummings. And Shakespeare of course, and Kipling and Donne (famous vaudeville comedy team, my Dad used to say. I never knew what vaudeville was until much later but I laughed anyway), and Frost of course, and Emily D. and on and on. Words and words. Dad making jokes. Teachers, some of them, lording it over me, forcing it down some of the time, but most of the time though, I got it. I heard the rhythm although I didn't have the words, or the vocabulary of experience, yet to explain to him that I knew. But still, he knew I knew and so he knew he was right to send me to that school that made me memorize life before I knew really what it was to live it. And he knew that in any way that he wasn't right, I would make up for it by being me, his daughter.

Of course, all this I know now, after he's gone. He died when I was 12. One night after dinner with the family, my uncle and aunt, my cousins. Eating and drinking (them, the adults, and especially him) and everyone talking too loud over the music. I don't mean to say, back there, that he 'drank'. Not like that. Not the way you're thinking. But he drank and ate and talked and was loud and...he was LIFE that man. All that life in that giant of a man; I never knew how big he was until he was gone.

"his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:

no hungry man but wished him food;

no cripple wouldn't creep one mile

uphill to only see him smile."

Here today gone tomorrow. He was gone after that night. And I have no regrets. I was with him, entirely, that last night. I rode with him home, the windows open. I remember him looking back at me enjoying the breeze and nothing else and I saw the pride in his eyes. I know I'm not imagining that even. It was a fact that pride and that love for me; his daughter in full--what he wanted from his girl. If he had asked for something from his God the night of my birth I know it was me. But, see, he made me this way. How could I be anything but this? And so there I was, with him. He had exceeded even his own expectations and so what was left for him but to die? What more could be asked of him?

i have no regrets. i wish i did almost. Maybe it would help me deal with that little loose end--the surprise i felt, utter and pure, when he was gone. Almost nothing else but surprise. The loss creeps in though. The sinking suspicion that maybe all i was, all i had in me, was back there, in the back seat to my Dad, making his night complete. Sometimes i think that. Maybe that's not as bad as it could be. Maybe it could be worse. Maybes am i.

"scorning the pomp of must and shall

my father moved through dooms of feel;

his anger was a right as rain

his pity was as green as grain"