This morning the coffee machine needed water. It was downpouring out the windows. The dog’s water dish was empty. I was thirsty. Water. I laughed at the ceiling. “Water is the theme of the day,” I said to the cats that waited at my feet for wet food.
After my run as I sat on the floor doing a makeshift stretch-slash-meditation it occurred to me that the rain was truth. It felt true to the marrow of my bones. The smell, the gathering of droplets on bamboo leaves that fattened clear and round, then slipped down down down to the dirt. I was still capable of recognizing authenticity. It was all around me; a jar of sea salt; a bird poking at the grass in search of a worm; a rumble of distant thunder. Truth rings different. If I take the time to notice and memorize how truth feels, lies, propaganda, illusions, and constructs are revealed in technicolor brilliance.
In this day and age, it’s a superpower we all need to harness.
Almost exactly a year ago my father, Gary Riley, passed away. Since late February my brain has been hijacked by a cable news-type-countdown, Tick! Tick! ticking down the hours until the one year anniversary of his death.
My strategy to cope has been an emotional mullet of sorts; business in front, pity party in the back. I alternate between wallowing in the heartbreak and working at break-neck speed on three business ventures simultaneously. Though it’s not written on my To-Do list, the one-year-ago-game continues, regardless. A year ago Dad told us in a conference call, “I just want to come home.” A year ago Dad was transported back to Fort Bragg. A year ago I sat at the kitchen counter and cried my face off while building a Harry Potter Lego castle. A year ago I questioned if I was strong enough to say goodbye to Dad in person. A year ago, blah, blah, blah.
Pair this with my compulsion to look back at our text thread from last year and I assumed I was trying to pre-implode, squeeze out the anger and hurt and pain and grief before March 15th so I wasn’t a complete wreck.
There’s something to be said for revisiting painful times so we don’t become karmic-Molotov cocktails. But that’s not what I was doing by reexamining the moments leading up to my father’s death. I was searching for the truth I missed in the moment.
Yes, the water taught me something today; I’m sifting through the words and events of a year ago to recognize the truth. How could I not have known that at 1:11pm on March 15th my father would take his last breath? The signs were there. On a deep, spiritual level I knew. Hell! I’d had a dream in the wee hours of that morning that was a clear visitation from my father. He said, “I’m pissed, Jenn! I wanted more time! I wanted more goddamn time!” That was him sharing with me the last of his earth-bound spirit before his soul departed for the beyond.
That truth of the raindrops fattening on the leaf? Dad’s ire at not having another week or month or year? Him wanting to be there to walk my sister down the aisle? Him creating a special bond with his young granddaughter, Lilla, like he had with the other five? Him wanting to text with me over coffee until I was old and gray? Him sitting across the kitchen table as he shared salacious gossip with his one true love? Him reaching out a hand and scratching the booty of Lucy the catahoula as she backed up to his chair in the parlor?
Like the droplets on the sagging bamboo that plummeted to the ground, so went Dad’s hopes for being a part of what came next. This is truth. It is authentic. It is real. The void he left is also real. The gaping hole where our salty tears and groans and shrugs and shouts and bitter thoughts coalesce sits waiting to be filled with something sweeter. That is also true.
And so it goes. The countdown continues. I’m endeavoring to use this as a time to heal the parts of me I stuffed down when Dad passed. I thought I’d lived out loud during the last twelve months, but I am a caretaker at heart and stuffed down some serious shit. It’s fermented, like soul kombucha, and in the days to come I need to drink the tincture to settle my bubbling belly.
As always, know that I love you. I see you. I care about you. And if this hits you in the ribs, then know that you are not alone in your grieving process. I’m standing beside you and squeezing your hand.
I do believe he visited you because I have had similar experiences. I was strangely comforted by the experience.