Passages

When Mr. Banana and I got married, there was one part about the whole experience that was bittersweet. My father passed away 9 years ago, and although he never would have been a huge part of planning my wedding or anything, the notion that I would be spending my life with a man who never met my dad was very odd to me. My parents are a huge part of who I am, as with most people, and the experience of losing my dad in my mid-twenties was extraordinarily formative for me. And the man who shares my life knows only what I (and others) have told him about my dad.

This is compounded, somehow, by the fact that I quite obviously married my father. Mr. Banana and Papa Banana have an extraordinary amount in common - they even look somewhat alike. Their personalities both tend toward the strong, silent type, they are both among the extraordinarily small group of men known as "Jewish guys who know which is the business end of a power tool," they are both meat-and-potatoes eaters, etc. etc.

And now I'm having a baby. A baby who will bear something similar to my dad's name, and who I will be wishing, under Jewish tradition, will be like my dad. This somehow seems terribly wrong. I should be naming my children for people who were very old when they died, who had opportunities to have their own grandchildren and even great-grandchildren, who lived long, long full lives. Not for my dad. No one should have to do that.

Of course, my father had to do it. I'm named for his dad, and my dad was the same age when he lost his dad that I was when I lost him. Vicious cycle.

There's a small (very small, thankfully) part of me that can't fully enjoy this coming baby because my dad won't be here to meet his first grandchild, and because my first born won't get to know the man he's named for except through stories and pictures. I certainly don't feel that I "knew" my grandfather at all. And some days it just makes me really, really sad.