It’s been 6 years

Can I get 10 more minutes?

It’s been six years since my Dad passed away. It’s been eleven years since our last words. What if I could get ten more minutes?

I have a habit of watching movies and listening to songs on repeat when they give me a specific feeling. I’m sure it has to do with a neurodivergent brain or the fact that I can have obsessive thoughts about things I don’t understand but I can listen to the same song or group of songs for days straight. I can also watch the same movie over and over again. Sometimes back to back. It’s largely rooted in nostalgia but I learn something new almost every time I watch the same movie over again.

When it comes to my Dad, Big Fish and Field of Dreams are the two movies that I catch myself watching on repeat in May of every year. Musically, he loved The Band so they go into heavy rotation as well. My Dad had a similar vibe to Kevin Costner. Not really sure how to articulate exactly what it was but it was an energy. A sparkle in his blue eyes, a mystery, a smooth operating kind of man. The type of person you find yourself around and think “I need to know more about this person”. As far as a comparison to Kevin Costner’s character in this movie I will just say this - My Dad would have leveraged that farm. In a heartbeat. He would have gotten in that VW Bus and kidnapped James Earl Jones without a doubt. There’s a scene where he gets to re-visit his Dad as a young baseball player. They toss the ball for a brief moment and his Dad disappears into the cornfields (which is basically the afterlife for those who haven’t seen it). Anyways, for a brief moment he gets to connect with the younger version of his dead father. Watching this scene last night, for the umpteenth time, wrote an entirely new chapter in my grief story. What if he came back for just 10 minutes? What would I say to him?? What would he say to me??? What I wouldn’t give for some more time. And in the same thought, I have a conflicting undertow pulling me away from wanting him to come back. Without getting into extreme detail, we had a complicated relationship. I stopped speaking to him five years before he passed because of a series of life decisions that I couldn’t support or be anywhere near. I had to choose myself and my healing. It was painful. It’s still painful. It got to the point where I could no longer choose myself while being in close proximity to his chaos and dishonesty so I made the decision that - as children of addicts - we never want to make. Do I wish things would have gone differently? Yes. Do I regret my decision to no longer have contact with him? Not exactly. Do I daydream of what it would be like if he was still here? All the fucking time. And do I wish I could play baseball with 20 year old Bucky Baxter? Absolutely. Do I know how to play baseball or any sport for that matter? Absolutely not lol….

If you have lost a parent (or anyone close) you know that a before and after starts to exist. You have most likely divided your life into two categories “before they died” and “after they died”. For me, my life before he passed was clear. Memories feel close. Life felt simple yet difficult. Life since he passed has been muddy, messy, and complicated. It feels like his death changed me on a cellular level. A grieving heart physically hurts - a lot. Not the type of pain I imagine a heart attack causes but the type of pain that washes over you so quickly that sometimes you can’t control the emotions that follow. An erupting volcano of tears and at the core of that volcano is your broken heart. Maybe my heart needed so much help navigating this that the rest of my body stepped in to make sure it didn’t shatter into a million pieces. A type of exhaustion kicked in that I have yet to be able to cure. I picture my heart surrounded by scaffolding sometimes. Temporary beams just keeping it all held together. Little cellular minions taking shifts making sure I can still get out of bed and keep creating a life that I’m proud of. Does it ever end? I don’t think so. But it does shift. In this season of life I find strength in sitting with people who are grieving. People who are aware of this type of pain. People who aren’t afraid to talk about this stuff. It’s the club you never want to be a member of but somehow find the biggest connections of your life with its other members. This goes for those grieving their parents or family members that are still living but they are unable to have a relationship with. I can relate and my heart is with them as well. Not only have I lost a parent but I have a complicated relationship with my Mother who is living yet we have never been able to truly connect on a level that made me feel safe and loved.

I want so badly to know where my Dad went. I think I know and my spirituality points me in a specific direction, one that provides a lot of comfort. I feel him everywhere. I see him everywhere. I speak to him in my dreams. But what if he came back for ten minutes? Instead of a baseball he would most likely have a fishing rod in his hand so I think to myself “maybe if I spend some more time by the water, I will hear him more”. The crazy things our minds do when we think we are being visited by our loved ones who have passed. A bird, a cloud, the wind - they are everywhere and at the same time nowhere that would heal our broken hearts. I wrote down a list of questions this morning that I would ask him if he came back for ten minutes. One of them being “when you said you saw Aliens twice, can you please articulate?”. I know the basic stories but I would love more details, ya know?

We never had a funeral for him but I imagine that it would look somewhat like the funeral scene from Big Fish. Full of characters from his past. Full of lore that I would love to know the truth in. Maybe a few people that felt like he owed them some money. I don’t know….but I do know that today I miss parts of him a lot. I wish I could have given him one last hug. I wish I could have said goodbye. I wish I could see him listen to my brothers new album. God, he would love it. I wish I could experience them play music together again.

And of course, I wish I could have healed his pain. I think of the whisper in Field of Dreams “If you build it, he will come”. If I apply that in my own life, if I leverage the farm, when will he show up? Clearly, I don’t live on a farm and if I built a baseball diamond in my backyard my landlord would probably take me to the loony bin BUT what if I spent some more time doing things in my life that he never did for himself? What if I spent more time in nature? Would he show up more?? Maybe. What if I taught myself to play the guitar? Would he visit me?? Possibly. I’ve tried fishing a few times and I can’t catch a fish to save my life so he definitely isn’t divinely supporting that hobby lol. Grief is a wild ride. Aging is grieving. Living is grieving. We all experience it. Some days are more uncomfortable than others. Today is a tough one. Thank you for being here with me.

Buckman, I hope you’re catching all the fish, Playing your pedal steel through every player still living, taking those long legged strides on your farm with a few dogs in tow, driving your favorite vintage truck to your local hardware store, telling tales to anyone that will listen. I hope you are the happiest you have ever been and I hope you can always find your keys and your glasses. Love, BB

*yes, there are punctuation and grammatical errors alllll over this article but if I would have spent one more minute on this, I would have chickened out and not pressed publish. Being vulnerable on a public platform is scary but so is being alone in your grief so maybe - just maybe - this will offer some comfort to someone going through the same thing. ♥️