Romanticized

I absolutely adore my Dad. I pretty much think he is the best man that I've ever known, that he is wise and taught me a whole ton of things about living a good life, that he has an unbelievable amount of patience, and that his love is absolutely infinite for everything and everyone.

All of these sentiments remain true, even after he is gone.

But I do wonder if I have romanticized his existence in my world a bit. And even if I have, is that a bad thing? I don't remember fighting much with my Dad. I remember laughing a lot, I remember kisses on the forehead before bed, and I remember swimming at the beach. I remember grocery trips and amusement parks and vacations. But I have an incredibly hard time recalling anything negative... occasionally exasperation at my childhood antics, but as an adult I look at those moments and ponder how it was never more than a sigh or rolled eyes.

I'm not sure if he really was just the best man that I have ever known, or perhaps will ever know, or if I just had this amazing relationship that appears to be something of a rarity in the world these days. I hope my daughter looks to her Dad with the same wide-eyed wonder that I still look to my Dad with.

I suppose it could be colored by not wanting to remember bad things, but I've really been struggling with the idea that one of the best people I've ever known is gone, so I've been trying to find the flaws. I'm sure he had them, I'm positive he did, but I'm finding it near impossible to think of any.

So even if it is romanticized, even if it's some rose-colored glasses I'm wearing, it is still my truth, and I'm sticking with it.

Plants As A Tool

Serendipity, coincidence, the stars aligning, who knows, but this post earlier today from Crow's Daughter comes at a very relevant time in my life. Lately I've been talking to a friend of mine about plants and herbs and their properties, even going so far as to consider an herbology course.

I tend to think of plants as healers of the physical world, but in reading her post, I have to consider that our physical affects our mental, and vice versa. Perhaps some healing plants would help shake loose the grief that I'm wearing like a shroud these days. There is far more in my life than just the death of my Dad, but it definitely colors my world on a daily basis in a way that I had not anticipated.

I am still in the process of finding tools to get through the rough patches (Dad related or not) and plants as medicine is something I believe in. Not in replacement of Western medicine, but as a supplement to, and in many cases doing far more for my health and wellness than pills ever did. I have certainly felt connected to certain things in the natural world (a specific tree where I live, for example), and the vast majority of people can't help by smile when they see trees changing color or flowers blooming.

Plants also go through natural cycles that we can learn much from and may be better off aligning ourselves with. Taking periods of rest, blooming with wild abandon at others, and creating deep roots when we have found ourselves in a safe space. I've seen plants take over concrete structures and change the very ground beneath us, so I find a wisdom in these green things that cover our planet.

Some comfrey tea may be exactly what I need to let myself heal and remind myself that death is a natural part of life. And that we all return to the Earth from which we came... and that is not a bad thing at all.

Up and Down

Grief is not this linear process, where once you go through the stages (ha, see here), you are suddenly free and clear of feeling the negatives. It does come in waves. Mostly I've been in a high, personally and professionally, and it's been a good thing, and would have been a good thing regardless of circumstances.

But then you stumble across the most random things and then...

I was going through my phone a few days ago, and there was a video from a trip that family took last summer. Saying goodbye to my paternal grandmother, spreading ashes, saying hello (and goodbye) to some family haunts. I had recorded a video of the location that had been my favorite in my trips, and was babbling on about the scenery. At the very tail end of the video, faintly, I hear my Dad talking to my kid.

My Dad saying my kid's nickname. Saying my name too.

It all came back, and anger over things like not taking his picture there, or having a recording of his voice on purpose, self-blame and judgment for not saving voice mails, it just flooded me to this point of being frozen.

I listened to that video fifteen times in a row. Over and over, just a few short words, not even directed at me, and since it was unplanned I cut it off at that point, probably to tend to whatever was needed in the moment, and now kicking myself for not recording longer, for not even suspecting that it would be one of the last recordings (possibly the last recording) I would have of my Dad's voice.

Five seconds that caused me to crash into that place of grief. Back to anger and acceptance and back again.

I feel lucky to have found it. I feel sad that I didn't record more. I feel happy that even that little piece exists. A blessing in a way, but I wanted more.

We all wanted more more more.

New Things Are Weird

In this new reality, I have recently received an offer for a new job. Nothing I was explicitly looking for, but it will be good for me and mine.

Sharing the excitement about the job with family is part of the... well, excitement. But there was something, someone, decidedly missing this time around. To not be able to call my Dad about the job itself, or after the interview, or when I accepted... It just felt off. His personal encouragement and advice was missing from a narrative that has always previously been there.

In spite of all that, I could still hear his voice when I looked for parental approval. My Mom has it in spades and was, perhaps, doubly encouraging, but I could still somewhat hear what my Dad would say in this new adventure. Things about being positive, showing them what I know, learning from others, being proud of me. All things I've heard before, so it was a memory that I can latch on to.

It's just different, weird, not really being able to share it in the moment. I know it's the new normal, but it still doesn't feel normal. I still wanted to tell him about it, and hear his voice literally, not in my head.

Of course this is going to continue to happen, and I'm going to have to look to memories about what my Dad would say about various new adventures in my world. Thankfully I have many to choose from and can piece it together as needed. But it still won't ever be the same.

Falling Off

In 2006, the family went on a cruise to Mexico. There were a few stops along the way, and one of the things my Dad and I did together was parasailing and then we rented a jet ski after and rode out. My Dad was driving and I sat behind him, listening to him laugh with complete joy as we went over the wakes of others, as he pushed the machine faster, as we bounced and got sprayed and, again, joyous laughter from us both.

At one point he stopped the jet ski, and asked me over his shoulder if I was ready for it to go as fast as it could. There was nothing but open water. We could see the shore, boats were around, but no one would be in our way. I nodded, and he turned the handle to accelerate.

I held on tight, closed my eyes, laughed, got sprayed, and eventually got bounced right off the jet ski. He turned around to get me but in trying to get me up, he fell off of it himself. Together we struggled a good 20 minutes to get back onto that machine, still smiling but getting tired. Finally the owner of the place we rented it from came out. He got my Dad on the jet ski, put me on the boat, and back to the shore we went.

By the time we got back on the cruise ship, we were both exhausted. No blame, no unhappiness, just 'damn, that ending was harsh'. Pretty certain we both napped for a few hours before dinner.

I don't know that either of us ever told anyone how much we both struggled that afternoon just trying to get back on the jet ski. I think I blamed the sun for my exhaustion (a valid excuse), but I didn't want to ruin the rest of the fun we had by telling people about the less-than-stellar ending. The three hours we had together on the ocean was the part to be remembered, it was what mattered, it was where the joy was. The end was just... harder than we expected, and it meant it was time to pack it in.

I have told a few people about the last few days with my Dad, but in general I haven't gone into any great detail. It's unnecessary. It may diminish the other 40-plus years somehow, in other people's minds. They might remember this 'harsh ending', whereas I want to remember all the fun stuff, the things that are worth remembering. It's not that the ending isn't to be discussed, endings are important after all, but it is so very far from the whole story.

That jet ski ending doesn't capture a day that included bartering on the streets, or grabbing a pineapple smoothie, or being dipped in the water while parasailing, or laying out on the beach, or feeling the spray of the water as we went faster and faster on the jet ski, or hearing the truest joyous laugh for a solid thirty minutes. The end doesn't capture all of it, it just describes the briefest part of an event. And it certainly doesn't capture all the fun that was had.

Grief Is Natural... In A Group

Upworthy recently put this story up about grief in the animal kingdom. As I read through it, I kept coming back to how there were groups of animals mourning. It was not just one individual mourning for another and then moving on solo, the animals generally have a herd or a flock or a pod to move forward with.

When we have the wake or the memorial or the funeral or the ash-spreading or whatever we do... We tend to do that as a group. There is community, there is family, there is someone to hold you up and vice versa in those tremendous moments of loss. But then life goes back to how it was (sort of). Our society has changed so much that we don't live together or even near each other anymore, so if we're not processing our lives together, I suppose we can't be expected to process our deaths together either.

This means that we individually process our grief. There may be phone calls and visits with friends that include tears, but for the most part it does seem that our true grief is alone, in quiet moments, in too early hours, in songs played on the radio. No one can speed that process up, nor should they, but when you do it alone over and over and over, it starts to become part of your own narrative.

Currently I'm living in this place of grief. There are other things happening in my life, but I know that conversations continually come back to my Dad right now, because that is what I am working on. But no one else in my current bubble is in it with me. They can honor it and listen to it and be with me through it, and I am grateful grateful grateful for that. But the mourning has been primarily on my own. I don't know if that would be true if I was with family during this time. Perhaps I would speak more to them about the mourning and the missing and the grieving parts and that would allow me to speak to my friends about other things because I wouldn't be looking for a social outlet for my grief, for a community to support me in it. Family would be that community. Family needs to be that support. We have each other, we need to be able to get through the grief together as well.