Sep 05 | A Blank Cassette, Part 3 (Letters from the Coast)

This is the last in a three-part series on the death of my father.

I’d love to end the story there, but it doesn’t end there.

I brought the tape home. It felt so momentous that I didn’t just want to listen to it offhand. I told several people the story, but put off listening to it.

Finally, I brought down the dusty old boombox from on top of the living room shelving unit.

I put the tape in.

The reels turned so, so slowly. I found that odd.

Nothing.

Just silence.

I fast-forwarded.

Nothing.

Rewound.

Nothing.

I was crestfallen for a moment, but thought the slow turning of the reels might mean the boombox was too old to play properly. I would buy another tape player, one of the small ones.

I kept meaning to, and didn’t, for a long time. There was lots of other stuff going on, and the symbolism of the tape meant more to me than its contents.

At least, that’s what I thought.

Finally, I bought a cassette player which could convert tapes to mp3.

I got home, and again, put it off briefly. I wanted it to be momentous.

But again, nothing.

Fast-forward. Rewind. Flip to Side B.

Nothing.

I took it out of the player and put it back in the case.

And hugged it.

And cried.

Silence.

And it will never end.

Not in the way I want it to.

As I tried to digest what was happening in my heart, I felt so weary, because I knew that this was a part of growing up.

I would never receive the simple answers that I wanted. I would never be able to make this mean, conclusively, that my dad had loved me and was now haunting me, literally or figuratively.

I’ve often told people that I believe human beings are meaning-makers. We are allowed to make meaning of our lives, even if it’s illogical or ridiculous to other people. It’s how we stay grounded in a world that never makes sense.

And yet here, meaning feels constantly refused.

So I started listening to “This too shall pass” by Danny Schmidt, and once again his somber, mournful voice reminds me of truths that I would rather not contemplate too often, and stopped my tears for the moment.

We are given such fragile, changeable lives. “And this is meant to be a gift?” we shriek at a universe that feels apathetic but is perhaps distracted with the multitude of life blazing forth microsecond by microsecond.

And the one who made it says softly, “Yes. Because only those who change can truly love in the way I have called you to love. Because love that transcends death, in all its pain and spiritual bloodiness, is the closest humanity can come to me without being burned away by glory.”

So I’ll put the tape back on the shelf, and hold onto the meaning of those neat liner notes on days where I don’t care that the tape itself is blank, and on days where the silence is in my lungs and heart and head.

I hurt because I loved him.

I hurt because I love him.