Reflections on Identity

Grieving My Two Fathers, 45 Years Apart

An homage to ginger ale, my comfort beverage of choice

Six weeks shy of my fifth birthday, my mother arrived home in the dead of night and accidentally woke me up when she popped open the metal frame of the trundle bed so that she could sleep on it. She was bunking with me, having given my grandparents the master bedroom while they stayed with us for a few days. She murmured an apology and whispered for me to go back to sleep, but I heard strange animal sounds, like a mewling cat, coming from the other room. I opened my eyes and looked at her shape moving around the bed, my eyes adjusting to the dark room.

“What’s that noise?” I whispered.

“That’s Nana,” she said, sighing, as she lowered herself onto the mattress next to me.

“What’s she doing?” I asked.

“Crying,” she said. “Laura, I have to tell you something sad. Your father died tonight.”

She started weeping then, so I did too. I didn’t understand what she meant, but I knew to be terrified at the vision of my beautiful, calm, soothing mother overcome by emotion. If that hadn’t walloped me, then the primal screams of my father’s mother a thin wall away would likely have done the trick eventually. My…