Sunday
I wrote this two years ago after a loved one passed away. Today, for whatever reason, is when I let it go.
I have wanted to share this piece of writing for some time. For two years I have chosen not to. Today is the day I change that. So, here it is.
The bonds in-between one and another. The understanding that, for as long as life stands, this person will guide, make okay, be okay, continually refresh and remain. My father did this and then one day stopped, disappeared. The presence between him and I ruptured within seconds, the ties that bound us fell loosely to the ground, turned to ash in my hands and I stood there, still. As trees swayed, as the sun set, friends darted to and about, not yet knowing the grief that wrecked me like a freshly smashed vase. What remains is a gap, a hollowed-out abyss that is struck with the unknowable. Where is he now? Where did he disappear to? How do I, daughter, walk? Walk away from my dad who created the very feet I stand on? To understand this, to comprehend grief of losing someone too soon, too fast, because their heart gave out, I do not entertain afterlife. I do not entertain another realm he is in, standing again, laughing once more, smiling. In thinking of the unspeakable I ground myself in the facts of it. He passed away one evening, calling my mom’s name three times before he collapsed and, as said, disappeared. He turned to ash, he did his time, and he went on.
I try to understand that. I try to understand that he left without saying goodbye. That he left before telling us the exact directions of how to live without him. There is no written word, rule, to knowing the next steps, although before I experienced this grief, I assumed there was. Read these books, go to that therapist, see this film, it will help. Does it help or does it distract from grief just long enough to feel that, for a split second, some part of you did not leave with him?
It has only been three weeks and two days. Writing this feels wrong. Why have I now given myself permission to write? Has there been enough time in between my current place and when he left to say something? Days keep coming, which is astonishing. Like seeing something burn before your eyes. That I am allowed anything baffles me. Grief came in, something big and bad, a fucking monster stomping about. What I can understand, what continually stays whole, is one day breaking into another. Soon it will be four weeks and seven days, two months and eight days. More years, days, hours, seconds that pull and stretch open. Time that exposes the loss of him.
What will replay and become something of a haunted memory is when I was in a funeral home, surrounded by nonsensical memorabilia, kissing the cold, paled forehead of my breathtaking father. How I thought he would wake up from his chilled nap, come to his senses, and walk out of that fresh hell smoking a cigarette. How I was horrified and sat on the floor unable to stand because I knew he would be lying, undisturbed, under a buzzing florescent light. The silence crushed my breath, it sent shivers in me; it sent a wave of numbness through my fingers. I cried, I said I love you over and over again. I noticed that for the first time in my life there was silence between us. An opening I never had confidence to fill with my own voice. I stood over him, kissed his forehead, said I love you for all it was meant to be, and then I walked away.
The light of that memory sheds itself through me now and again. It takes resilience to know, in grief, what will hurt you and what will help. Does looking at old videos where he laughs and says your name help or hurt? Hurt. Does smelling his neck ties hurt or help? Hurt. Does kissing an old high school picture of him and saying, either out loud or to your heart, you are true, you live on, hurt or help? Help. Does going to a dingy, disturbed funeral home, where dated pictures hang of the Pyramids, the Statue of Liberty, and tombs of fallen soldiers, to see your dad one last time hurt or help? It helped. I thought it would flatten me into the earth but it did not. It helped to have silence between us. It helped to heave, cry, lay over him, kiss his forehead and know that at least I came. I saw my dad one last time, put on my nice dress, showed him who I will continue to be and walked away having peace he would lay without pain.
He rests in the silence now. The halted phone calls, the no more movies till dawn, the extinguished bouts of laughter, the pine trees which will lean down their heads on the first winter without him. Bowing down to what once was, what will not be again, asking if those bonds in-between will continue to be or if the center will not hold.
Presently, on August 18th 2024, I have this continuing thought: Sundays are for grief
If there was a day, more than any other, to which we can mourn, it is Sunday. Out of all the days of the week, Sunday is most opportune to sit with your pain, anger, or sadness; The grief which ceases to stop running through you like a pipeline of energy so potent and strong, it controls your every move. We confess on Sunday, we clean on Sundays, we wipe out of the bad of the past week and try to “let it go”. We are reborn. In many ways, this feels religiously inclined even though I try to avoid such associations post my force fed Catholic school days. Still, we find that quiet ridden corner of ourselves and we grieve. Grieve for a lost friend, dog, grandmother, or lover. Maybe all you grieve is for Monday or maybe you grieve for yourself. I grieve for my father, my grandmothers, and my grandfather. I grieve lost friendships and lovers. I grieve my dog who has just passed away. I am heartbroken having just ended a long term relationship. I grieve that today.
I am currently reading Sloane Crosley’s book Grief is for People. While reading it today, I thought to myself yes, grief is for people. And grief is for Sunday.
When death happens, it feels like it will happen again. When will the other shoe drop? I can attest to this as, for me, my father died the first day of July and my grandmother died the following December. A mere six months later. My dog of fifteen years died another six months later, that following June, only a handful of weeks before my dad’s death anniversary. so, death does happens in succession. It is true that we see it more often than we once did. We look for it everywhere and once you start looking, well, it’s hard to stop. You will always find it.
The clean cut stages of grief are, truthfully, bullshit. There is absolutely no way of going through these things in sections of understanding. I realized this as the months went on after my dad’s passing. The stages of grief are just branches you graze past, or cling to, as you fall. They are objects you fall into along the way, hitting them randomly, and with pains each time. You can hit them again and again as you fall. You can hit denial for weeks and then anger all of the sudden. Then back to denial. He is not gone; he is away on a vacation. Finally, he took that vacation. Anger comes back. It hits you hard, then you fall to your knees and sob because he is gone. He is never coming back.
I had the hardest time understanding the loss of my father. In many ways, I still do. I’ve said it once and i’ll say it again, he died very suddenly, on a beautiful July evening. My mother and he were the only people home. He drank a beer for the first time in years, perusing a group of old high school pictures his mother, my grandmother, had given our family earlier that day. The images were splayed out on our kitchen counter and my mom had just scanned a few for all of my siblings to see. My dad then walked outside for his usual cigarette, came back inside and then suddenly collapsed. He called my mom’s name three times. Carolyn, Carolyn, Carolyn. He had a heart attack. The ambulance rushed to our house but he was already dead. The light was gone, as my mother would later say. He was gone. That evening, as I sat starring out the window, I remember thinking to myself where exactly, did he go?