“I am sad my dad never got to meet this version of me”
BY CATHERINE MCCAFFERTY, IMAGE BY LEE JAMESON
Losing my dad helped me realize I was queer.
I used to have a joke on stage about my second life. I would tell the audience how I tended to date older guys and that I was certain I would marry one of these men. We would live together as husband and wife and he would get older and grow sick and eventually, inevitably, die before me. I would be in my 60s, and after an appropriate mourning period of four to six months, I would get to have my second life. Second life I would date women, only women, and nonbinary folks, because all women and nonbinary people are gorgeous, and I was … very much in denial of my identity.
This joke usually didn’t work on stage. I had assumed everyone wanted to be with women, and we all had different journeys to get to be with women, and I would have to watch a man die in order to get to live my second life. And it turns out I did have to watch someone die, only it wasn’t my husband’s death I had to witness. It was my dad’s.
My dad’s death was sudden. We had a little less than two months with him in the hospital, and I was by his side when he took his last breath. Remembering those weeks feels like replaying an old horror film, with that cloudy filter, something that I watched, not something I went through. My dad died of alcoholism, and when I say that people assume a lot of different things, but if you have any understanding of alcoholism you know it doesn’t follow one stereotype. My dad was a really good dad. He was fun and he loved being a dad. He was a person with a lot of hopes and dreams and unfortunately, the disease of alcoholism stopped him from living the life and being the person he so desperately wanted to be. Watching my dad pass away felt like a hard shake to my nervous system. I suddenly questioned a lot about my life, and how I was living. I looked at these old stupid men I was wasting my time with, men who didn’t treat me well, and it hit me that sometimes we don’t live long enough to get a second life.
I needed to live my second life first. I started with a rewatch of The L Word, so embarrassing, but a vital detail in this story. I watched The L Word and listened to any podcast I could find with a lesbian on it, bonus points if it was an episode about coming out. Slowly, I began to come out to myself. I am sad my dad never got to meet this version of me. I am sadit took his death to speed up the process of me finding myself, but I will always be grateful I didn’t have to marry a man to find out I was queer. I just had to watch my dad die.
Catherine McCafferty’s debut stand-up show (Not) That Bad is at the Just The Tonic Bottle Room at The Mash House @ 3.30 pm for tickets go to www.edfringe.com
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