The storm we don't ever see coming

My father died forty years ago this month. It still hurts.

A crisp start to your Saturday morning, TV weatherman Jim O’Brien promised, but by afternoon it should be sunny with a high of 65. Not a cloud in the sky.

That’s what we knew going to bed Friday night. For mid-October, the weather would be fine and dandy.

The sun was still coming up as the clock radio did its job, too. I found a sweatshirt in the laundry room to take off the chill. Mom would take me to my part-time job in Manayunk, a preppy clothes outlet. There was time for cereal while she had her first cigarette and cup of coffee. A rat’s nest is how she liked to describe my hair.

By 8:30 a.m., give or take a few minutes, I knew two things: It was going to be a gorgeous day. I needed to brush my hair if I wanted a ride to work. Actually, there’s two more: I liked the boy who took me out on my first date last night. Jimmy Bramson. And soon I would be driving that two-door white Pinto parked out front, just as soon as I passed the test.

So far so good.

The hunt for my hairbrush on that crisp October morning led to the next thing. And that next thing was seismic. The ground beneath me crumbled. The moment that changed everything, forever.

Feet away from the hairbrush, my father was on the floor, face down into the purple shag carpet of my 70s youth. His skin was cool to the touch, inky blue. I shook him like a doll, frantic for anything but this.

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I’m in the car on my way to a memorial service for Ellis. He and Margot were married for 58 years, and they made two beautiful humans, Claudia and Stu. Claude has been in my life since the seventh grade.

That morning, a small group gathered in Claude and Sage’s hotel room. We closed our eyes and tapped into the energy that connects the living and the departed. My father came into my mind’s eye. He winked that wink of his, assured me that Ellis was doing great. Please tell Claude, he said. We traveled to the den in the Horwitz’s old house on Yarmouth Road, the one of countless sleepovers and Friday night Shabbat dinners. Ellis is holding court. Jazz is playing on the stereo.

As I turn off the expressway onto Belmont Avenue, I know at least two things: My love for my childhood friend has no bounds. The cemetery where my father is buried is on the way to Ellis’s sendoff. And there is time for a quick pitstop.

I make a left through the cemetery gates and drive like I know where I’m going. I get to the spot and can’t find the head stone. I circle around again and insist out loud, “This is the spot.”

From under a tree, I call the main office and explain the situation.

“I’m so sorry you can’t find your father, dear.”

I ask him to give me a hand, I have just a few minutes to hang out before saluting Ellis. My eyes lock on the headstone, then flood with tears.

I sit on the headstone and do the math. It’s almost forty years to the day since that crisp October morning, when my hairbrush led me to the shell of a man I had adored. A man, who with my mother, taught me how to tie my shoes and to do my best. Who insisted that I taste everything once. Whose last conversation with me was about my first date.

Over forty years, I have been to 20 countries. Went to college in West Philly, your old neighborhood. Became a journalist. Went to cooking school. Wrote three cookbooks. Fell in love a lot. Married for keeps to a good one. Still twist my ankle. Thought I was having a heart attack, twice, just like you. Still wonder why.

I remember the lemon verbena in the car that my pal Cathy had clipped from her garden. I place a few sprigs at the base of the head stone.

“You know know what I wish?” I say out loud to the stone and the trees and whoever else is listening. “I wish we had had more time. I really do.”

Earlier this week, I was on a photo shoot for a cookbook project (not mine). We gathered at a park just a few miles from the house where my brothers and I grew up. The chefs and their families gathered at a picnic table, smiling for the camera. The dogs are strategically waiting for scraps to fall. Everyone tucks in, as the waning light kisses them all.

The dreamy weather is familiar, makes me wistful for just one more day.