Her Charmed Life

Okay, so he isn’t really my dad. He’s my father-in-law. Kind of. That’s a long story for another post, but he’s basically my father-in-law. His name is Jon. That’s not actually his name but it’s what I call him on this blog. I think it’s funny because I imagine he hates that name. I laugh when I think of him saying it with disdain. Like the name Jon tastes bad to him. “Jon,” he would say, “Why the hell do I gotta be Jon?” He would follow that question up for days with different names. Most of the ones I imagine he’d suggest would be unusable to me. He probably would want me to call him Fucker or something equally outlandish. Jon died in October of 2023. That was four months ago. Jon is haunting my house. Or just the people who live in it.

Jon was an Army veteran and served his country for four years. He was diagnosed with Bipolar I in his late 20’s. He struggled with the manic symptoms of his mental illness and only just started to really accept what it meant while we lived together. The illness distanced him from his entire family, except me and JR. He was also diagnosed with Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and his lungs didn’t function properly towards the end of his life. He was trying to get a transplant. Jon had three children. Two boys and a girl. He missed the children he hadn’t been able to speak to until his passing. Jon enjoyed sneaking boatloads of candy to his grandson (I hated it, kids are a menace on candy) and liked telling jokes with him. He was homeless for 10 years. He didn’t have any teeth and liked to threaten to bite people who pissed him off via flying dentures.

I met Jon in October of 2018. I spoke briefly about him in my post, It Wasn’t the Rabbit Hole, It was Uncle. Jon lived with his son, JR, the entire time I knew him. When JR and I got together, Jon came too. Jon and I had a great time together in the first three years that we spent together. I was never without a smile and he was almost always the cause of it. He was hilarious, kind, gentle, and fatherly towards me. Jon often called me his daughter (which kind of became a problem later) and talked about me to his friends. I loved Jon with all my heart and I still do. I feel like it’s more appropriate to talk about him in the past tense because I can’t hold his hand or hear his breathing. I know he is still around though. I can smell him in the halls of my home and hear his footsteps lumbering up our wooden basement stairs. I memorize footsteps. I know they are his. I can see him in a golden glow sometimes, out of the corner of my eye. I can feel him right now as I write this over my left shoulder and in my hair. He is probably making sure I’m not shit-talking him. Don’t worry Jon, the shit-talking is further down the page. (Great now my hair is itching my scalp, fucking ghosts.)

I really love to fish. I like to one-up people on the amount of fish I can catch versus them. I remember fondly when I challenged Jon to a fishing race. Jon kind of rolled his eyes at me and JR started talking about fishing licenses. I didn’t care about the license. I just wanted to have fun with them. Jon taught JR and me how to bottle fish. No pole, no problem he had said. We didn’t need the license if we bottle-fished. So we hunted for our supplies (we went to Walmart) and successfully made our poles with empty soda bottles and used some frozen shrimp as bait (Walmart was out of worms). We started fishing and Jon only caught one fish. I caught five. He sucked at it and I was officially declared the best bottle fisher, of basically all time, when I caught a puffer fish as my sixth one. Jon and I sat at the end of this shabby dock for hours catching (or not catching) fish while JR paced behind us. JR didn’t catch any. I think Jon probably let me win. I don’t care though. It’s the best memory I have of him. I miss his grumbly low laugh. It made my eardrums vibrate when he was close to me.

We all moved to Virginia during COVID-19. Fucking military. Jon had been on the edge of a manic episode for a few days and once we finally got settled in our new house he dove right off that edge. Head first it seemed. We lived in VA for two months. JR was only there for one of those. During those months, Jon became someone I didn’t know overnight. He changed right before my eyes. I don’t have much experience with people who live with mental illnesses like Bipolar disorder and I certainly was not ready for the absolute 180-degree flip Jon made in his personality. JR had tried to warn me this would happen. He could see the signs of Jon beginning to slip. I don’t think JR was ready for how intense this particular episode was. It lasted the entire time we lived in VA and continued for a few more weeks when we left. While he was manic, Jon thought he was the God of Creation and often took himself to the hospital via ambulance without my or JR’s knowledge. We filed two missing persons reports in 30 days and became friends with the paramedics on the night shift. We ran into roadblock after roadblock to get Jon admitted to a hospital. I told the police Jon attacked me. JR tried to get Jon to actually fight him. Jon knew what we were up to and robotically told the police he wasn’t going to the hospital. Our hands were tied. It’s the only time I’ve ever been afraid of Jon. He didn’t know who I was. He thought I was his actual daughter, he thought I was his mother, He thought I was Pink (yes the singer) and Dolly Parton. He said he was married to Dolly. I was scared that I might walk in the door one day and he would try to do something to me he wouldn’t normally- attack me, kiss me, or take me school supply shopping. I had no idea. JR had to leave to go to Ohio before we had enough money to move. So I stayed behind with Jon while JR and I scraped and penny-pinched for a new home in OH. I think those two months may have been the hardest times I ever had with Jon. I told him to stop calling me his daughter after that. I didn’t like it when he was manic and called me that. I think it hurt his feelings but I didn’t have the emotional freedom with him to explain why without hurting him more. I hope he understands now.

I went on a 90-day TDY in October of 2023. I was in Florida while Jon and JR stayed at home in Ohio. I was in Florida for 10 days and then Jon died suddenly in a car accident. That asshole couldn’t have waited 80 more days for me to say goodbye. What a Prick. JR and I struggled to wade through the first waves of our grief alone. I felt like I was suffocating on tears and hollowness. Sometimes I still feel that way. I miss Jon. I miss him a lot. I threw myself into my newfound witchcraft. I searched for God. I searched for Jon. My friends checked on me now and then, and complained when I distanced myself from them for too long. I knew they were just worried. I wanted to punch them. How dare they expect me to speak to them when I couldn’t even breathe around this fucking feeling? How dare Jon do this to me? How dare I let myself care so deeply about someone that I feel this way? I felt embarrassed. I felt alone. I didn’t feel anything at all. In my search for God, I was unsuccessful. I did find some friends in Jon’s family though. I became close with Charlotte and spent time with them all. It helped marginally. Then I went back to my hotel room and felt everything all over again. I wasn’t going to survive this. Surely I wouldn’t. I would die of pure heartbreak. I could actually feel my heart breaking in my chest a little more each day. That deep sharp pain in your chest you get when you hear something hurtful. Heartbreak. It still cracks some days. Like right now, as I write this, and feel Jon’s creepy ghost spirit behind me. Crack Crack Crack.

Anyway, I did survive it. Mostly at least. I think I only ended up coming out of that feeling because of Samhain. I had never left any kind of offering or anything like that. I made toasted chickpea pasta. It was really good. I laughed as I ate it, remembering that time I bought vegan meatballs by accident and Jon insisted they were disgusting (after he ate two helpings) and that I was trying to kill him because I didn’t want to eat meat anymore. I wanted Jon to try the meatless pasta, just to hear him drama-queen his way into a whole new meal for himself. So I set the rest of my leftovers up on another plate and set my intentions and thoughts on him. I felt silly but I said out loud that it was a Samhain offering for Jon and that I’d really like him to join me if he was around. A minute or two went by and suddenly I felt like I was in a full restaurant. I could hear silverware clanking on dishes, chairs being pulled out on the hardwood floor, and the hum of conversations all around me, laughter. I felt the warmth of a busy kitchen and the people around me. I was surrounded. I smiled for what felt like the first time in weeks. I could breathe finally. I felt Jon in front of me. He was sitting at the plate I laid out! I didn’t see anything but I knew in my heart of hearts he was there. My soul recognized him or something. Of course it did, this was Jon. My prick ghost dad. I’ll always recognize him. I chatted to the thin air in front of me and Jon talked to me. He told me the food was good (of course it was, I made it for him duh). A few minutes after I was done eating, I knew it was time for him to go. It was Samhain. I bet he was busy. So I said goodbye. The pain was marginally better after that. I could breathe a little and my heart didn’t break every day.

Now Jon creeps around my house. His room is in the basement, all of his belongings still in it. I found out officially today that he’s taken on a Protector role in my life (it’s official because Charlotte told me). I have only seen him once but I feel him often. He loves to play pranks on me and JR. He flickers lights and makes me smell my St. Michael invocation soap and Egyptian Musk incense. Today he turned off my heater that’s under my desk when I was talking to Charlotte about him. He sent me a dream last month. Prick.