When We Tell My Dad Whitney Got into Graduate School
By Brock Allen
He tells us about a phone call with his cousin, Ethan, who’s had cancer for the last seven years and whose latest medication isn’t working like it used to, and Dad says the last time he saw him he was looking thinner, thinner on hope mostly, but Ethan called this morning to talk about his son Wyatt, who committed suicide three days before, and he asked if Dad could speak at Wyatt’s funeral, and Dad who has many words for any occasion didn’t know what he could say to Ethan besides that he loves him, and that yes, he would be honored to speak, but he tells us he doesn’t know what he will say because so far all he has been able to tell Ethan is that he loves him, and he wonders if these might be the only words that will be right, and as he tells us I think selfishly that I wish I had known Wyatt better, but I had moved away when his family moved back to Montana, and I only know his older brother, who I last saw three years ago at Grandpa Buck’s funeral when he told me he liked my talk, and I thanked him and apologized for crying the whole way through it, and now Dad apologizes to my wife, Whitney, for dampening her exciting news and he tells her congratulations and we both try at a few jokes, because we both only know how to crack jokes when things turn too sad or serious, and I ask him how Mom’s feeling because she taught Wyatt in music class and knew him best, and I know him mostly through her and I think of him now as I always have—as a bright light—because that’s how she described him, and to empathize Whitney tells Dad she learned a friend from high school also committed suicide and last night when we rode the bike trail that cuts through the cemetery, we saw his family gathered around the opened ground, and I thought how wrong and disdainful it felt to take an evening ride so close to their mourning, their tragedy, but now I feel wrong and disdainful for wanting to ask Dad if he knows how Wyatt did it, and I feel gross from my curiosity, but I don’t ask, and now there’s little left to say, so we trade jokes, and Dad says we should call Mom and tell her about Whitney’s acceptance, and he tells Whitney again how happy he is for her, and we say we love him, and he says he loves us and the following week after the funeral I learn those were the only words that were right, that he shared the quote, “We can love completely without complete understanding,” and I know I don’t understand much and I love even less, but I also know that sentence sounds so pretty it makes me want to try harder with both, or either, for a little while.
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About Brock Allen
Allen is an essayist from Montana currently living in Utah, where he is an MFA candidate at Brigham Young University, and a managing editor at Fourth Genre. More of his work appears in DIAGRAM, Pithead Chapel, and wig-wag.