Today is my father’s birthday. It’s been over a year since his passing. I can’t believe it. Where has the time gone? As a parent, I always had to refer to the marks on the wall to really appreciate my kids’ growth. The same is true for my grief journey. The mark on the wall from a year ago was filled with watery, red-rimmed eyes, chesty sobs, ache beneath my ribs, wearing Dad’s old sweater and hugging his photo, which I set back down beside a maple bar I’d offered him that morning.
That was a different me. I’ve lived and died twenty or more lifetimes since then.
This morning I woke, thinking of Dad. I sat in the raw grief of missing him for a few minutes, then spoke to his photo and felt better. Grief, one year later, has become the good dishes now; the ones stored in the dining room buffet that are dusted off and used three or four times a year. They are beautiful, special, and perfect, but I’d never overtire them with daily use.
My father, you see, does not live in that grief. He is much more than good dishes. As I worked in the garden today (okay that sounds overly-glamorous, let me try again.) As I scooped Cooper’s poop from the yard, I listened to a question-and-answer session with Ram Dass. He said that grief is good, but it soon gives way when we make the breakthrough that the love we shared with that person still lives. It is accessible forever more. We will always have that space to dwell together in our love, accessed through the tear in the fabric of the Universe that was created with their death.
I’m not saying I am enlightened. Hell, I am a messy work in progress, but I read something I wrote in the days after Dad died. In the story of his Folger’s can, his final resting place, I said something like, ‘…love in the present, because that kind of love never dies.’ I knew then that my father’s greatest legacy was his love, partly embodied by the imperfect, hilarious, beautiful, compassionate, community of family and friends he built. He is still here, as is his love.
So today, around four in the afternoon, I’ll pour a glass of Chardonnay and turn on Judge Judy. I’ll set a shot glass of wine in front of Dad’s photo. I may even take out the metaphorical good dishes for a time, but when I rinse out the glass and turn off the TV he will be as he has always been, a loving force of nature in my life.
Beautiful piece!
I love hearing your memories of your Dad. I think that he’d like your description of “a loving force of nature”♥️