Thoughts on November 23rd...a Sunday.
So--I've been browsing old photos today, wasn't really my plan, but it ended up happening. Not just any recent photos but the really old stuff and it has left me thoughtful and contemplative on all the changes that take place in a family through the years...time passing...new little families forming...loved ones passing on. Just "Life" in everything that it truly is. To use a common analogy--the tapestry of life that we all weave, all the threads, all the mistakes, all the perfections, all the experiences and perceptions knitting, knotting and weaving together to make an exceptionally interesting "whole".
My dad passed away almost 9 years ago, very unexpectedly. It is the single-most great tragedy of my life. I've never experienced such a torrential and drowning grief before or since. I've had grief, and other minor tragedies and sadnesses, but nothing can hold a candle to his passing. In my belief system and value set, I believe in the hereafter, I believe that we are with our loved ones again some day, and there was some deep comfort that came from that--but the day-to-day sadness and resounding sense of he-is-dead-for-the-rest-of-my-life loss was almost debilitating and numbing. Numbing in the sense that the world was a little dimmer--not so bright--and actually a lot more wild--than it was when he was here.
Not having a father to buffer me from the big, bad world...a port from the storm, a comfort that there is someone who will somehow make all things right again, somehow--someone that has protected you from birth...suddenly I felt very small in a very big place. I felt more vulnerable, more alone, more on my own than I ever had before then...and I considered myself a fairly independent person. I was 29, but I still needed him...still do.
During this whole "thing", I'm not even sure what name to give the time period, being the oldest child of 6, I felt I needed to be strong for my family. To be a pillar that others could lean on. My mother needed me and was so grief-stricken as to being inconsolable. Her tether was having her children around her, but her heart was broken--shattered and all she could do was look at the pieces overwhelmed by how to put it together again. My siblings, oh my siblings...even thinking of their broken hearts and woebegone faces moves me and makes my heart ache to this day. My youngest brother was barely 16, the next boy 18, my sister was 22, the next brother 25 and the next 26.
I felt such a sense that if I didn't hold it together, that we would all explode like a crystal chalice on a marble floor--shards and pieces scattering to all corners--irreparable. So I held it together and tried to comfort as best I could, trying to love and coax everyone back to a happier place. In serving my family in this fashion, I gradually mended myself as well. By losing myself in service to them, by reflecting and contemplating on my own grief and sense of loss, while remaining grounded to the day-to-day responsibilities and tasks at hand, I somehow made it through this catapulting event and came out on the other side, what I hope is, a more mature individual.
Healing the heart, the spirit and the mind, takes time. Often, time does not even remotely move at the pace we want it to. It's too fast or too slow. But, if you allow it to, time does heal in its own way and in its own "time". Just like with a physical wound, you heal, but there is still a scar, and if the wound is deep enough, you ache when the weather changes and can feel it in your bones when storms are coming.
And so my family has repaired. We've had some hard times, a lot of huge learnings, painful growth spells, but in the end, we've come away much closer, much more understanding of each other, and wiser for the wear. By no means, is the family perfect...please...not even close. We still have our faults, our disagreements, our pettiness’ and misunderstandings that occur--just like with any family, and our small distances between people that need to continue to be worked on and mended, but for the most part, we have moved closer together and have all healed in our own ways.
Regarding my father, specifically, he had his faults just like any of us do, but he was a good man, and a good father and I think that most of the time, he tried really hard to do what he thought was right, just like the rest of us try to do our best most of the time too. But also, just like the rest of us, he made his mistakes, some small, some really big and they impacted him and our family. I'm sure, just like me, if there were things he could have done or chosen differently, looking back on it, that he would change things. But that's the rub isn't it? "If only I could go back in time...", "If only I could have a do-over"...if wishes were fishes we'd all have a fry...part of being an adult, a true bonified adult, is learning to live with that regret, and to make something of what you have now--moving forward, always moving forward.
I've learned a lot from my dad. Both about how to be a good person, and how to try to avoid falling into the common human failing traps of making yourself too much of an exception too often or indulging in petty prides and habits. He taught me to appreciate differences in others, to look for the things that are interesting and good and true within humanity, and the people around me in particular. He taught me to treat others with respect and dignity, no matter their social status or class, that every person has value and that you don't always know everyone's story, even though sometimes you may think you do. I learned to be a strong woman, to stand on my own two feet, to push back when people try to bully me, to be loving towards others, to forgive, but mostly to always remain true to who you are in your core, to stay the course that you have set for your life and to think before you speak--look before you leap.
I'm still his human-in-training, still that daughter that he tried to raise the best he could, passing on the things he thought were important and true...and while I'm imperfect and don't always keep all of these things he taught me in the forefront of my mind...I do try, sometimes falling down and getting up again, sometimes successfully making a sprint and breaking my previous time...I take the small victories wherever I can get them.
In the end through all of this, all that really mattered, the only thing that I thought of over and over and over again, was that I hoped he knew, really knew, how much I loved him--that no matter what--no matter anything--that he knew that I was so proud to be his daughter, so glad that I had been born to him, into his family, to him and to my mother and that I loved him and couldn't imagine my life without him--that my life would be less for having him gone from it, and that no matter what I believed, that seeing him in the hereafter was no consolation for having him gone from the here and now.
I was worried, because I didn't get to the hospital in time, before he died, that he didn't know that. In the panic of death and the wave of grief that crashes over your head, I was worried that he didn't know that I was on my way, that I was coming as quickly as I could, and that nothing in the world could keep me from his bedside. When he died in the night during the course of my trip from one state to another, as the lights of the Las Vegas strip were twinkling and rushing by, I only hoped that somehow he was with me, that he saw that my brothers and I were rushing to be by his side, even though we didn't know that he had already gone.
My mother assured me that he knew, he knew we were coming, that he knew I loved him, that he knew...it was my all consuming thought. Nothing else mattered. No slights, no mistakes, no petty misunderstandings, no debts of varied natures, no perceived injustices, no physical worldly attributes mattered...all that mattered were hearts and minds and love.
These are my thoughts, this Sunday afternoon, looking through photos of a family that I am blessed to call my own.
