I've been without my father for 17 days now.
Seventeen days of darkness, waiting for light. Praying for light. Trying to find gratitude. Lost in the dark.
My best friends know that when it gets dark, the rabbit hole comes closer. I'm afraid to turn out the light or close my eyes, because the dark just gets darker. So I sing to the darkness.
It is impossible to sing yourself to sleep. You cannot sing your own lullaby.
When my mother died, I had so many questions, and no possibility of answers. Death is final like that. So with Dad, I did things differently. I had the conversations. I unloaded my soul over the 13 years since we lost Mom, and we talked. About all the things. I learned from Mom's death, so I wouldn't make the same mistakes, and then Dad died and the questions crept in.
What did he think of me? Did he think of me? Or was I out of sight, out of mind? Did he see me as I am today, or as I was once upon a time? Did he know I'd grown? Did he remember the good stuff, or was I far enough away that when I wasn't there, he reverted back to memories of me when I couldn't be trusted?
And once again, I will never have the answers.
In the 13 years since Mom died, I have grappled with the loss and the questions, and I've grown. But if I'm honest, goddammit, I really do not feel the need to grow like that all over again. I wasn't prepared to have my heart broken, because now here I am without my dad, without my answers.
This is a lonely place to be. It's isolating and terrifying and I can't much cope with the darkness. It's been about two months since I've had a good night's sleep and I don't know how long this can last.
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
From here, there is nothing but questions and sadness. I'm pretty much just waiting here for one good thing. Just one good thing. I don't think it's too much to expect that something good will happen in a year that has thus far cracked me open in all the worst possible ways. Because there are only so many nights I can sing in the dark.
Monday, June 19, 2017
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Things my father gave me
When I was in my early 20s, my father gave me a cedar chest. Painted white with a floral pattern, I fell in love with it at one of the fancy shops in downtown Geneva, IL. It was beyond my budget, and I knew I would never have it, right up until I did. I don't remember how it happened, but I know that for my birthday, I received that cedar chest. It has been my coffee table or my bed bench ever since.
I love it because I've had it for more than half my life, but I love it more because it came from my father.
The earrings I'm wearing right now - the little Hawaiian slippers, in perfect sterling from Na Hoku on Oahu - are the gift he brought back for me on a trip to the islands with my sister. I'm sure she played a part in selecting them for me, because I'm sure my dad doesn't remember that I bought myself the matching pendant when he and I were on Oahu a few years before. But still, I love wearing them, because they came from my father.
So many things he has given me over the years. At the moment, they all feel like heirlooms. The bench in my bathroom, which he built with his hands. The shelves that hold my books, which he cut from a huge piece of lumber just a year ago.
He is present in every room of my home. My dresser is a perfect blend of both Mom and Dad; it was a flea market find that Mom bought without a top on it. She picked it up because she fell in love with the hardware, and Dad built the top out of scrap lumber. And my bed? Dad bought it for Mom when she was recovering from surgery after breast cancer back when I was 11 or 12.
I'm not sure how I'm going to cope with Christmas, because he is all over my tree. When I was a teenager, he gave my friend Patrick and I the first string of lights for the first tree we ever put up apart from our families. Christmas has always been our "thing," and many of my ornaments came from my parents. After Mom died, Dad began purchasing for us the annual Swarovski crystal snowflake ornament; those are so special, because they feel like a legacy from Mom while they're also a gift from Dad.
But those tangible things are nothing compared to the real gifts. The ones that can't be opened, but seem to get a little more uncovered as I grow older. My sense of humor, my absolute lack of patience for liars, my tendency to eat dessert first.
And yet there was one I didn't see coming. In the last month of his life, my father gave me a gift that I wasn't prepared for at all. One that did not have an accompanying gift receipt, so I cannot return it. See, in those final weeks, Dad gave me an entirely different version of myself.
This one comes complete with compassion. And it's sorta blowing me away.
If you'd told me just four weeks ago that there was a day in the not-too-distant future when I would sit with someone in silence or in conversation, just content to be with them, I would likely have laughed. If you'd had the audacity to suggest that I might provide care throughout a loved one's most personal biological occurrences, I definitely would have thought you were off your nut. But there I was, giving it not a single thought.
I'm not writing this to toot my own horn. Nope, not really; it's more a way of pointing out that we are all capable of stuff we might not have thought possible. And caring for Dad (which in turn meant caring for Mike, too, because the care of Dad was the care of Mike at times) was the easiest and hardest thing I've ever done.
I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would switch places with him if I could. But that's not how life works. Instead, I get to be here. Without him.
And I do not like it.
Missing him gets turned up a bit, every day. I am my father's daughter, and he was my favorite person in the world. And it's a big world. I have a feeling it's going to get worse before it gets better, and when it hits me, it could get ugly. But Dad taught me to be strong, and sometimes being strong means asking for help.
Which is another new skill.
I love it because I've had it for more than half my life, but I love it more because it came from my father.
The earrings I'm wearing right now - the little Hawaiian slippers, in perfect sterling from Na Hoku on Oahu - are the gift he brought back for me on a trip to the islands with my sister. I'm sure she played a part in selecting them for me, because I'm sure my dad doesn't remember that I bought myself the matching pendant when he and I were on Oahu a few years before. But still, I love wearing them, because they came from my father.
So many things he has given me over the years. At the moment, they all feel like heirlooms. The bench in my bathroom, which he built with his hands. The shelves that hold my books, which he cut from a huge piece of lumber just a year ago.
He is present in every room of my home. My dresser is a perfect blend of both Mom and Dad; it was a flea market find that Mom bought without a top on it. She picked it up because she fell in love with the hardware, and Dad built the top out of scrap lumber. And my bed? Dad bought it for Mom when she was recovering from surgery after breast cancer back when I was 11 or 12.
I'm not sure how I'm going to cope with Christmas, because he is all over my tree. When I was a teenager, he gave my friend Patrick and I the first string of lights for the first tree we ever put up apart from our families. Christmas has always been our "thing," and many of my ornaments came from my parents. After Mom died, Dad began purchasing for us the annual Swarovski crystal snowflake ornament; those are so special, because they feel like a legacy from Mom while they're also a gift from Dad.
But those tangible things are nothing compared to the real gifts. The ones that can't be opened, but seem to get a little more uncovered as I grow older. My sense of humor, my absolute lack of patience for liars, my tendency to eat dessert first.
And yet there was one I didn't see coming. In the last month of his life, my father gave me a gift that I wasn't prepared for at all. One that did not have an accompanying gift receipt, so I cannot return it. See, in those final weeks, Dad gave me an entirely different version of myself.
This one comes complete with compassion. And it's sorta blowing me away.
If you'd told me just four weeks ago that there was a day in the not-too-distant future when I would sit with someone in silence or in conversation, just content to be with them, I would likely have laughed. If you'd had the audacity to suggest that I might provide care throughout a loved one's most personal biological occurrences, I definitely would have thought you were off your nut. But there I was, giving it not a single thought.
I'm not writing this to toot my own horn. Nope, not really; it's more a way of pointing out that we are all capable of stuff we might not have thought possible. And caring for Dad (which in turn meant caring for Mike, too, because the care of Dad was the care of Mike at times) was the easiest and hardest thing I've ever done.
I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would switch places with him if I could. But that's not how life works. Instead, I get to be here. Without him.
And I do not like it.
Missing him gets turned up a bit, every day. I am my father's daughter, and he was my favorite person in the world. And it's a big world. I have a feeling it's going to get worse before it gets better, and when it hits me, it could get ugly. But Dad taught me to be strong, and sometimes being strong means asking for help.
Which is another new skill.
Friday, May 19, 2017
Holding space
It sounds like a difficult thing, holding space. The way I understand it, to hold space for someone means you walk with them wherever they need to go, wholly present, shouldering their burdens along with them.
I think it's most notable when you hold space for a loved one. I've had ample opportunity to do this of late, and I consider it practice in life. But any time you ask someone "how are you?" and you wait for the honest answer, you are holding space. When you hold eye contact with the barista and say a sincere "thank you," you are holding space.
For me, anyway, it's the act of letting your needs go in order to meet the needs of another, and it's a direct route to the most sacred parts of me.
I didn't put those words on it while it was happening, but these week I've had the opportunity to hold space with my father. He's been to see more doctors in the last seven days than any one person should have to do, and on one particular day he was having a blood transfusion. I was told to expect this process to take five hours or more, so I packed my iPad, three magazines and a coloring book for the day. I used the iPad to send an email to family members, and other than that, I never once opened my bag.
It wasn't because I was trying to be disciplined or anything; it was simply because my place in those hours was with my dad. Wholly and completely with him. Sometimes we talked, sometimes he'd just smile at me. One of his friends stopped by to visit, so I took a walk around the hospital, but other than that we simply sat together.
Holding space for one another.
It was a simple day, and one that I hope brings physical healing to my father. But what it did for me was transformational, too. Because sometimes what we needs is to be seen, heard and loved. Nothing more, nothing less.
I think it's most notable when you hold space for a loved one. I've had ample opportunity to do this of late, and I consider it practice in life. But any time you ask someone "how are you?" and you wait for the honest answer, you are holding space. When you hold eye contact with the barista and say a sincere "thank you," you are holding space.
For me, anyway, it's the act of letting your needs go in order to meet the needs of another, and it's a direct route to the most sacred parts of me.
I didn't put those words on it while it was happening, but these week I've had the opportunity to hold space with my father. He's been to see more doctors in the last seven days than any one person should have to do, and on one particular day he was having a blood transfusion. I was told to expect this process to take five hours or more, so I packed my iPad, three magazines and a coloring book for the day. I used the iPad to send an email to family members, and other than that, I never once opened my bag.
It wasn't because I was trying to be disciplined or anything; it was simply because my place in those hours was with my dad. Wholly and completely with him. Sometimes we talked, sometimes he'd just smile at me. One of his friends stopped by to visit, so I took a walk around the hospital, but other than that we simply sat together.
Holding space for one another.
It was a simple day, and one that I hope brings physical healing to my father. But what it did for me was transformational, too. Because sometimes what we needs is to be seen, heard and loved. Nothing more, nothing less.
Monday, January 23, 2017
52 Lists - January 8 through 14
This week's list was a hard one for me: List all the routines in your personal life an work.
I don't feel like I have a lot of "routines." I have habits and traditions and rituals, but they don't really feel like routines. When I checked in with Jenn, though, she encouraged me to think of these things as routines and include them in the list. Here's what I came up with:
A lot of my routines center around working out or work itself. I think that's because we tend to use those appointment-like habits as the framework around which we build the rest of our life. So, that's where most of my routines come from.
I don't feel like I have a lot of "routines." I have habits and traditions and rituals, but they don't really feel like routines. When I checked in with Jenn, though, she encouraged me to think of these things as routines and include them in the list. Here's what I came up with:
- Morning coffee when I'm getting ready for work
- Taking walks during work breaks
- Saturday morning workouts
- Weeknights at Life Time Fitness
- Weekday morning work chats (I have some great colleagues)
- Working from home on Mondays and Fridays
- Annual Christmas decorating (at home and at church)
- Working out (um ... that's in there a lot. I'm trying to love it more these days.)
- Breakfast after Saturday morning workouts
A lot of my routines center around working out or work itself. I think that's because we tend to use those appointment-like habits as the framework around which we build the rest of our life. So, that's where most of my routines come from.
The second part of this list was to circle the routines that bring joy and crossing out the ones you don't like. I didn't cross out any, because honestly there's nothing on here that I dislike; however, it would appear the ones that involve food or coffee rank toward the top.
You're not surprised at all, are you?
Routines are tricky business, because the word itself doesn't feel inherently positive. I'd like to introduce some new ones into my world, but I think of them more as rituals. Things I'm going to be trying over the next few weeks (maybe to become a habit by late February?) are tea before bedtime and a short yoga flow in the morning.
What about you? Are there any routines you'd like to add to your list that aren't there yet?
Saturday, January 14, 2017
52 Lists - January 1 through 7
Back in September, my sister Jennifer and I bought the same book - 52 Lists for Happiness by Moorea Seal. We thought it might be fun to work on the lists and compare notes. I thought it might also be fun to share the process throughout 2017. Is there anything more worthy of a weekly commitment than the pursuit of happiness?
List one is "What makes you happy right now?" I was fortunate to be writing out this list in Florida, and from a balcony of a cruise ship. Pretty sweet arrangement, and it shows through in my list. Here's a sampling of what's on my list:
List one is "What makes you happy right now?" I was fortunate to be writing out this list in Florida, and from a balcony of a cruise ship. Pretty sweet arrangement, and it shows through in my list. Here's a sampling of what's on my list:
- Seeing Goofy, Pluto, Donald and Minnie
- Really good chocolatea
- A great cup of coffee
- Netflix
- Baths
- Knitting
- The perfect smell on a winter day
Once this list is final, the next step is to ask yourself, "how often do I actually get to experience these things?" Then, the idea is to pick one thing from the list and work on making it a daily practice. So, I'm planning to start each day with a great cup of coffee (I do this most days, anyway) and end each day with a great piece of chocolate. Decadence, book-ending my days.
So, come on in. Make your own list. We have all year.
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