My Father, written after his death August 12, 2019

 

I felt like I’d had amnesia and the intimacy of death cracked open a trove of memories. Or perhaps the forgiveness that transpired as I lay my head on my father sobbing at the heartbreak of a silent goodbye as he struggled to breathe—eyes closed, no longer reactive, seemingly unconscious to my weeping words— broke through something. I gave in to being a little girl, against hospital warnings and the 30 year wall of protection I had built, I lay my head on his chest and sobbed…and his arms that I thought were gone lifted in instinct to wrap around me and give me a last squeeze. I was a girl, a daughter, allowing myself to be comforted by a parent. I was a daughter, and he was once again my daddy, in the end. 

For weeks after his death, I was bombarded by memories I did not know I still had—of times he had been my father, his quiet presence as he would “babysit” my dolls for me, play along with my games and skits, his bending to hold me, gently telling me of tumors as I wrapped my small arms around his neck and cried, “Daddy, I don’t want to die,“ waking from nightmares in the hospital to find him dozing next to me in the quiet still dark, waiting for my morphine addled pleas—always at the ready with stories to ease me back to sleep. 

Memories came flooding like missing puzzle pieces of light, to join the many dark ones I had again and again memorized. Completing a picture I thought I had finished years ago. 

And so I am left without the father I had in so many ways forsaken. In the last moments he showed up for me as my father, I now see how not asking him to had been a factor in this absence. I can see it clearly in the safety now of his forever absence.

Losing my father broke my heart…unexpectedly, utterly, almost inexplicably. It was 3 years ago today. I saw the memory come up and I had to count on my fingers, because what is 3 years in the pacing of grief? It’s something, I know, three years marked the first shift of grief for my mother. 

It feels like 5 years, it feels like another lifetime. It no longer feels like yesterday—like a page I can turn back anytime I want, a crisp careful triangle marking the sound of his voice as just a moment ago. I knew I would miss the pain (a lesson from losing my mother), I’d miss the acute disbelief, the brutal reality that two days ago he was a spread of pictures hitting every corner of my life, that I could call or ignore. And then the quiet terrible silence of never hearing or seeing him again.  

He was 87, and though healthy, it means it wasn’t a tragedy, it wasn’t a trauma—it was just a deep deep groove of a heartache, skipping on repeat. 

He wasn’t a typical father, or even really a good one by most metrics. But he was always always on my side, always there, quiet and sure—in his study, by the lake, or in his chair. When he had quelled the monster in him, he was really rather remarkable.  ❤️

Little Dreams

December 28, 2021

Coming up the hill of our driveway after a sunset walk tonight, I looked at our modest colonial house with the colored Christmas tree lights glittering through the windows and said to my husband, “If someone had told me this would be my home when I was growing up, I would have been so happy.”

Our house is small, modular, and has no real landscaping. But little me would have only seen that the house was two stories, crisp against the night sky, and filled with the colors of a festive Christmas.

It wasn’t just that I grew up poor, but that I grew up ashamed. My parents could have plopped our messy rental house and our chaotic drunken dysfunction in the middle of Maine, and we probably would have ticked along just fine. But we lived outside of Nashville’s Bible Belt, in a fieldstone ranch in the middle of cow fields that sat behind a mason’s lodge (the organization that was our landlord).

By the time I was 8, the field in front of our house had become a flourishing subdivision—where all the houses, lawns, and people looked the same to me. They went to church on Sunday, said yes ma’am and no sir and kept their houses neat and ready like an episode of “Leave it to Beaver.”

While the subdivision was being built, my siblings and I would play and explore in the houses after the builders had left for the day, dreaming they were ours. We were dirty (we only took tubs on Sundays, in reused water—washing in order of age—a dingy, cold reality for me as the youngest); we were outsiders—feral white trash of overly educated / under employed northern parents. 

All I ever wanted was to live in a house with two stories (and a shower)—clean, and ready for visitors. Clean and ready is still a bit of a struggle for me (if you tarry beyond our open downstairs), but from the dark outside, our home would have sat majestic to me—a dream realized.

(with 2 showers to boot!)

Bog Magic

July 2020

Our trip to Lubec this weekend was rainy. My vision of sun drenched days by the ocean was swallowed in the mist. We made the most of the foggy warm day by walking on the bog trail at Quoddy Lighthouse. As we drove up to the fog shrouded lighthouse, I knew we had made the right decision. The trail wound along ocean cliffs, the rocks cropping up in dark huddles through the mist. The woods path to the bog was so magical that they had to put up signs to not make fairy houses. The green moss lit the woods, dark trees tangled a ceiling above the trail—I yelled ahead to the kids, “Hansel and Gretel, don’t take candy from the witch!” As we reached our destination, the fog cast the perfect spell for viewing the bog. The pitcher plants were drinking their water and mist rolled in between the myriad of species as we inched our way along the boardwalk. 

On the trail back, I was walking a bit ahead of my kids and husband. Buoyed by the joy of a vacation day rescued and enchanted with the dark magical woods, I began to skip to “We’re off to see the wizard.” I felt lifted up out of this world into memories of similar moments of magic and promise from my childhood. Those vacation times of walking around Lake Scranton, or hiking Mt. Battie, when I would feel that around the bend something worth holding your breath for could be waiting, that mixture of delight tinged with hope. 

I believe this ability to levy myself up with creativity, magic, hope...has shaped me into a survivor. I emerged from my childhood, cancers, traumas...intact in a way that I could not have without this belief in magic. From Santa to fantasies—this place I could visit—the shire, the labyrinth, the dark and twisted woods alight with green, has kept me whole—able to love my children, retain friendships, and eventually be prepared to accept a love big enough to lift me out of fear and murk. At 51, I am more complete and happy than I have ever been.  Though I can still enjoy my wings being lifted up a little higher, my life is finally one I want to revel in, not escape from.

                    

Ten

On the lake, there is a part of me that is still ten, wearing my red sweatshirt and braids, quiet in the boat as my brother teaches me to row. I am everything and nothing. I am small and strong. I fit in my skin just right. Water is the surest, most forgiving time machine.

August 2, 2020 The Hangover

I woke up this morning, sad, and deeply hollow—hungover from the mania of our adventures after dropping off Fiona at the Canadian border and possibly from a glass or two of scotch. The joy of successfully getting her back into Canada and her life in Montreal buoyed the rest of the day for us. Seeing her happiness about returning to her life of autonomy is always well worth the acute suffering I first experience at her leaving. 

The sadness I felt this morning blossoming under my headache carried with it an instinctual need to keep it to myself. We as parents are only expected to be seen applauding our children’s continuous flight away from us as it is not only deemed to be natural, but it IS the brass ring of successful parenting. 

My discomfort with the notion of my sadness, led me to scramble toward a justification for its acceptance. I posited this thought—when our parents die in old age, it is natural, it is expected, it is what we all had planned and is the natural order of things. But no one tries to make you feel guilty for grieving the death of your parent at any age. Your friends don’t write, “What are you whining about, they were 85, you should be grateful!” on your Facebook. I well know these losses are not equal. But natural order grieving is still grieving.

Grieving is processing. I process by writing. So here I am, deeply thoroughly grateful that my daughter is back on her path of life—while still hearing the phantom sounds of her and trying to help my head and heart reckon with the reality that I don’t know when she’ll come through our door again, shouting “hiiiiii” as she has done every day for the past five months. 

Fiona fills our house and our lives in a way that understandably casts a shadow when she leaves. As my husband and I walked yesterday, he turned to me and said, “I don’t blame you for being sad, she adds a lot.” Turns out, he’s sad, too. How lucky are we to have a child who adds light and leaves a vacuum?

I know grief, it gets better. I know myself, I will cradle hope, massage it into a new shape of life. Certainly, watching my daughter thrive will hasten that process. But until then, I will let myself be where I am. I will try not to grief shame myself with thoughts of how much truer, deeper grief others are experiencing. Or rush myself because I know the countless, boundless blessings of my life. I know how to be gentle with myself. But I don’t know, honestly, how to ask others to be gentle with me. I think it’s something we are all struggling with—being gentle with each other. I guess the first step is asking. 

Wake Up

My mind is frozen, I feel the tick tick tick 

The sound of her chair slides across the floor above

I lie beneath her room, counting the days

Now 5

The fear of missing a moment paralyzes me 

Into a statue on the couch, dust gathered

Heart beating, eyes fogging

Letting her go, to a border that will lock shut behind her

I’ll feel joy for her 

I’ll feel gratitude

That decisions and mistakes will be her own

In a better place

I’ll even feel her relief as we turn home

As she goes on—to friends and city, a life unsheltered

Then I’ll wake the next morning to silence above me

Not knowing when the chair will scrape across again

Unfrozen and empty, I’ll slide the statue aside

Wake up

She’ll need to see me move, to want to return

My darling ideal reader, Fi

It’s time to start