It happened during a break from writing. I looked at my morning coffee mug at the corner of my desk, recognizing the stale smell of what’s forgotten in the air. The afternoon sun beamed through the slits of my office window. I glanced at my watch, knowing that the next hour required all of my attention before my writer cape switched to mother again. Since errant thoughts stockpiled in my mind, my focus failed. I scowled at the irony of squandering sixty minutes of uninterrupted time to write without juggling chores, my daughter and errands. “You can do this. Focus.” Sometimes we transform into our own self-help authors.
I allowed myself a momentary distraction. One click over, I landed on my Gmail account to check on a freelance assignment that I submitted earlier in the week. In and out, I told myself. Then I will resume writing again. Instead, though, a familiar name and a subject slowed my breath. The email came from one of my late father’s dear friends. He realized that Diwali passed a few weeks ago and he wrote that he thought about HB (a nickname he called my father). As one paragraph moved into the next, he conveyed the state of my childhood home, the happenings in the neighborhood and how the season reminded him of my father.
It took twenty seconds to read the message. By the end of it, my eyes welled up and one by one, the tears started to fall on my computer keys. In each tear, I reflected on a memory of my father. One particular instance flashed in my mind. When my husband and I returned from a vacation one summer, my father made a handmade Welcome Home sign that greeted us as we walked up the driveway. I still remember the rounded edges of the letters and how such a small gesture offered such happiness. The other moments trickled down too. Family carom nights. Eating fruitcake during Christmas. Long conversations about politics in our living room. The first time he held my daughter.
And then in a bold whisper, I said, “I miss you, Dad.”
Grief is that unexpected knock in the middle of the night. All is quiet and then boom, it feels like you are submerged in water, flailing your arms, moving around and using all your energy to try to not succumb to that particular kind of sadness. Although its been almost six years since I lost my father, when I remember him, my insides brace themselves to cushion the punch in the gut. The passage of time only heightens grief’s bullet.
The wound reopens.
I glanced at the clock and noticed that motherhood needed my attention. The hour passed with a caravan of memories of my father and childhood home. Perhaps I got too accustomed to the quiet. I needed the knock. To remember again.
The sun no longer peeked through with its goodness. Instead, an unexpected gray colored the desert sky. I grabbed my keys, stood up and walked out of my office.
That’s how it is sometimes. The unraveling is unexpected.
Welcome! I am a lawyer turned freelance writer, essayist, and editor. On staff at Literary Mama and the co-founder and co-editor of the literary journal, The Sunlight Press, my essays and reported work have appeared in The Washington Post, The Lily, Saveur, Civil Eats, Brain, Child, ESPN and elsewhere. I am currently at work on a memoir on grief and culture and how it provides perspective on life’s ordinary graces. I invite you to appreciate the ordinary with me. I hope my daily practice of seeing the magic in the mundane helps you celebrate and find more of these moments in your life too.
I love this phrase….”the unraveling is unexpected.” Unexpected indeed. I find the same thing with my feelings about my dad…
I think the unexpected quality of grief is the most maddening for me. I tend to relive the sadness again.
I always know when my husband is stressed because he dreams about his late father. Such a connection we have with our parents that even when they are gone they are somehow still here!
Your father sounds like such a kind man which goes along with his kind face. Making that welcome sign took his time and care which I’m sure he’d say you are worth every moment and every detail!!
Thanks, Sarah. That Welcome sign is a memory I will treasure. I agree that the connection to our parents after they pass gains a gravity that might not be present when they are alive. Sorry for your husband’s loss.
I know this grief my dear. Sending you hugs.
Thanks, Ayala. I know you understand. xo
No one says this, “the passage of time heighten’s grief’s bullet.” People assume that the grief lessens through time. But you have spoken truth. I now feel the loss more deeply when the memories come to the surface. Those years and holidays together seem so far away but have become softer and more emotional in quality. Fermented, they carry a potency I did not expect to feel.
So beautifully said, Jennifer. I love how you describe it as a fermentation. Indeed, the memories have such a palpable quality to them. Thanks for adding your insight.
Beautifully written and oh so true. Your dad will always live in your heart.
Thanks, Elaine. I am glad the piece resonated with you. I appreciate you letting me know.
What a gift to have someone that was close to your father write such a lovely note to you, and then to have the cascade of memories trickle down during that hour. I’m sure you must miss him so much.
Kristen,
Yes. I am so grateful for that gift and the remembering that followed.
The everyday carries a tinge of sadness – that feeling that somehow there will always be something missing. xo
Very touching Rudri xo
Thanks, Mari. It is cathartic to honor his memory in my space.
6-29-05
This is what I cannot throw away
Dad passed away 25 years ago. I was on the phone with him, he was mid story and I heard the phone fall and Mom screaming. She kept telling him to get up – I knew he was gone, and for a moment I thought how like my Mom to be telling him to get up, and he’d never listened to her before and it didn’t seem likely he’d start now. I flew to San Francisco that evening and spent the week with family and planning my Dad’s funeral. I had a warm look at my family, a good bunch really. All wanting the one next to them to feel better. We eat soup that Dad has made the day before. We all stared at Uncle Bob getting off the plane and looking just like Dad. We were all kind to one another. And as the week ended I wondered – what do I want to keep of Dad’s, so I took what he had in his pockets and kept that. A comb, a wallet and his glasses. I love the comb, it seems so personal, like he had just finished using it. I’ve got these things in my night stand and can’t imagine throwing them away.
Wanted to share some of my writing about my Dad,
Bobbi
Thanks for sending this touching memory about your father, Bobbi. I agree that there are mementos that we cannot bear to throw away. xo
7-27-05
Take back one moment
Late one evening, tea with Dad. All the kids are sleeping. We’ve visited, we’ve started pancake mix for the morning, Dad always has to be cooking or preparing food. Then Dad asked, “Bobbi Jo, what do you think happens when you die? Do you really believe in heaven?” I’m at the sink cleaning up, and answer in just a few words, “Yeah, Dad, I believe in heaven.” He flew back to San Francisco that week, it was the last time I saw my Dad. It’s not guilt I feel, but I wish I’d stopped what I was doing. I wish I’d looked at my Dad. I wish I’d said “Well Dad, let’s talk about it.” If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. I’d ride that horse up to Dad and we’d visit for hours about death and dying and what it means to both of us.
Just one more about Dad, Bobbi
I do think that though we stop thinking about losses as often, as the years pass, that when they come back and hit us it is all fresh again, as if the loss happens anew.
How kind of your father’s friend, though, to let you know. xoxo
Yes, Luanne. Grief becomes a backstory until some memory triggers it to move into the forefront.
So abundantly grateful that my father’s friend helped me remember again. xo
Sometimes the unraveling is unexpected and sometimes it’s exactly what we need. I think we tend to hold grief in and let it build without realizing it, at least, I’ve found myself to do that. Big hugs to you, Rudri.
It is what we need even if we aren’t expecting it. What a lovely way to handle the wave of grief. Thanks, Susan, for your insight. It is comforting. xo
Definitely. Well for me it’s unexpected but also expected. I expect it to happen throughout life, but I never know when.
I get that for my father and all of my grandparents too.
I think once you experience loss you certainly understand how the pendulum swings. xo
I know that unexpected rush of grief must be difficult, but I think that email from your father’s friend is such a gift. I hope you keep it and in a few years perhaps you can read it and some other mementos of your father on his birthday or other important days.
My grandpa is currently on hospice and near the end of his life. I haven’t had a close family member pass away in over 10 years and I know this is going to be so difficult for everyone in my family, especially my grandma.
It has been more than 20 years since my father was killed in a car accident – still so young, in perfect health, and with so much life still ahead. I am always taken aback at the way the grief can strike out of a simple image or sound, and I realize how deeply he is missed – and how much he missed.
Then I remind myself that these are signs of how profoundly he was loved. And aren’t we fortunate to have known parents that we love so much.
Wishing you a peaceful and enjoyable holiday season, Rudri.
xo
Sometimes the feelings do grow with time. I’ve noticed this, too. I’m sorry you are hurting so much but what a lovely email to receive — someone else out there was thinking of your father and felt strongly enough to write to you. What a beautiful gift.