My father died yesterday. Not much of a way to start an essay, is it? But it's the thought that sits at the top of my heap of thoughts, shouting the loudest, with the most irreducible voice. My emotions, in 24 hours, have run the gamut from unfathomable wretchedness to warmth like sunshine to a stillness that is somewhere between nothing and everything. I feel like I have been hit by a train when I've done little more than sit. Sobbing takes a physical toll, and so does emptiness.
My father was 92 when he died, although my feeling was that he had really left us close to a year ago when he stopped recognizing the world and withdrew his personhood from it. Over a period of months he became someone we had to get acquainted with. From time to time I wondered if the person we were getting to know wasn't really, at its nucleus, who he really was, without any of the traits we invent to obscure who we are inside. There came a day when we understood that pretenses, ambitions, habits, and agendas were clothing that he had shed, and all that was left was the essence of him. Maybe the Who he had been born being. No one can answer those sorts of questions. You have to just sit with possibility and wondering. And wandering. That's all he was doing at the end. Wandering into dark corners to see where he might go next. Once in a while, if he let us, we wandered in with him. For a while he allowed us to try to pull him back out.
My dad wasn't a toucher, or a hugger, or even a hand-holder, but the last few months of his life he seemed to forget that about himself. My belief is that as he got closer to that light-filled doorway he lost his apprehensions about closeness and instead was glad to connect with us here, as if he would be able to hold onto us while he gingerly placed a toe, then a foot, then his body past the threshold. Dad was a strong, brave, dedicated human being, but, like most of us, he was fearful of the unknown, and that last walk is definitely one we all take alone without a shred of a picture of where we are going. In his last few months he didn't mind a kiss or a hug, and, in fact, seemed glad of them. He liked having his hand held. Maybe he felt a little more safely tethered that way. You couldn't have asked him; he barely knew the word "spoon," plus, even in his articulate days, his engineer mind didn't work that way, and he wouldn't have known what the heck you were talking about. But as his brain became muddled, somehow I think his instincts became clearer, and he felt more than ever who the people were who loved him.
Dad really left months ago, but remained lightly in his body a little while longer, I think, to console us until we were ready for him to go. This introverted, often silent man had a heart that had sometimes beat too strongly for his own comfort when he was younger, but in the end it was always his family that came first. When my sister and I were young, he normally found ways to remind us that he was the boss. My mother's counsel was usually along the lines of "it's best to let him think so." But when it came right down to it, he was a softie for his girls, although he would have denied the "softie" part and made it into a speech about doing what's practical or correct. The number of times he came to the rescue, or got on the phone, or wrote a letter to say "Come on home" can get miscounted in the higher count of curmudgeonly, grumpy grumblings that were the persona he was comfortable projecting. Heaven forfend anyone should think he was a pushover. But he never fooled those who loved him for long. We were the ones who loved him, after all.
Grief is a dark wash that can drown all five of your senses. No forethought, no anticipation, no planning can make you ready for its eventual tide. It squeezes your brain and shrouds your heart until all you feel is numb. Grief has no rational counterpart the way that love can counteract fear or anger or the way patience can heal anxiety. You cannot slow it down or make it run its course faster. You ignore it at your peril; it will only build up behind the dam and ultimately flood your village. It must and will be heard, and no matter where you turn, there it is, before your eyes, even when you close them. It is a relentless roller coaster without a seatbelt that mercilessly yanks you around until you're so whiplashed that you can't even hold up your head. It will leave claw marks on your heart, and each one of those scars has the potential to tear open at a moment's notice, without any warning, bleeding hot, stinging tears.
Grief is a blessing, though, in the end, because it means we have loved. At this moment, I can't feel the blessing part yet -- I am still caught in the briar thicket of pain it has dragged me into. But, from afar, for sure, I am admiring all those deep, scarlet scratches because each one is a testament to how much I loved my father, and I know that how much I loved him is, now, exactly equavelent to the shards that grief is gouging me with. I will lie still and feel it for a while. Then one day I will hear his voice in my ear, his wings brushing my neck when he lands on my shoulder, and I will shed a tear of joy instead.
