Fathers’ Day

Yesterday was Fathers’ Day and I got Max a new electric shaver and a package of toothbrushes (he specifically asked for them) plus a new t-shirt with sushi on it. I bought Fathers’ Day cards from me, from Polly the Beagle, and from one of Max’s stuffie nemeses, Mr. Wizard’s Brother, Mr. Wizard.

One of the more unique, or should I say idiosyncratic aspects of our home life– one might even go so far as to call it folie a deux — is that since Sarah loved stuffies so much, Max and I always endowed stuffies with personalities and some had little lives and adventures of their own. My favorite “alter” was a little wizard that the drug company who made my seizure medicine gave away. Mr. Wizard was a beneficent soul who preached world peace in a horrible broken German accent and loved children and just wanted everyone to get along and practice herbal medicine. That is, when I had my hands on him. When Max got his hands on Mr. Wizard, he was an escaped former Nazi and schill for the drug companies trying to take over the world. Mr. Wizard had many adventures, including disappearing for a few days, at which point he reappeared in our mailbox as — you guessed it — Mr. Wizard’s Brother, Mr. Wizard.

On his side, Max had a Max doll from Where the Wild Things Are that I projected all my dark fantasies on. He was known as “Medium-Sized Max” to differentiate him from Little Max (the smallest of the Where the Wild Things Are toys) and from the actual Max. Medium-Sized Max, according to Big Max, is a vegan who devotes his days to yoga and the eightfold path. Yet I believed that under that facade he was a troublemaker with oppositional-defiant disorder who loved causing problems in the house and needed badly to be sent to reform school.

I tried to make Fathers’ Day a good day, and a fun day. I let Max sleep late, and while he was sleeping I baked some Banana Bread, and I put his presents and cards on the coffee table in the living room. Then I fell back to sleep and he woke me up when came downstairs. We looked at his cards and gifts and he told me he really didn’t need all this stuff, that he thought he had told me not to bother. I felt sad. I knew Sarah was missing from the equation. I didn’t know how to bring her in.

Max went to his AA meeting and I went back to bed. I slept about another three or four hours, just sleeping the day away. I got up again around 4, and then went to bed around 7 pm, exhausted by my depression. I knew Max was feeling bad too and I didn’t know how to help. I guess it was just a bad day for us.