Some days I think: I'm not doing so well at this. At healing. At surviving. At moving forward.

I'm not doing too well at all.

Is this what they call a cry for help?

"the terrible club to which we all eventually belong"

Not long after my dad's death, I felt like everywhere I turned--in every article on the internet, every youtube comment, every news story or movie or tv show--there was someone who was also mourning a terrible loss. I remember laying on my bed, thinking about how many other people were most likely suffering, right now. I thought about how much pain and grief and sadness and emptiness had always been swirling around me as I blithely lived my life.

 How many of the people I encounter every day, I wondered, are hiding some terrible sadness? Maybe that barista woke up crying for her dead parent this morning. Maybe that mailman just got the news that it's definitely cancer. Maybe that rude customer is acting angry to mask their terrible, terrible fear of how will i feed my kids. I thought about how much loss there actually is in our world. No one lives forever. Every loving relationship will eventually end in heartbreak. I suddenly felt an intense connection with everyone else around me, because eventually we all are hurting in our own ways, for our own reasons.

I recently stumbled across a quote from Rosanne Cash that beautifully describes the feeling I'd had about the suffering all around me:

“In the months since my father’s passing I had come to understand that the loss of a parent expands you- or shrinks you, as the case may be- according to your own nature. If too much business is left unfinished, and guilt and regret take hold deep in the soul, mourning begins to diminish you, to constrict the heart, to truncate the vision of your own future and to narrow the creative potential of the mind and spirit. If enough has been resolved- not everything, for everything will never be done, but just enough- the deep grief begins to transform the inner landscape, and space opens inside. You begin to realize that everyone has a tragedy, and that if he doesn’t, he will. You recognize how much is hidden behind the the small courtesies and civilities of everyday existence. Deep sorrow and traces of great loss run through everyone’s lives, and yet they let others step into the elevator first, wave them ahead in a line of traffic, smile and greet their children and inquire about their lives, and never let on for a second that they, too, have lain awake at night in longing and regret, that they, too, have cried until it seemed impossible that one person could hold so many tears, that they, too, keep a picture of someone locked in their heart and bring it out in quiet, solitary moments to caress and remember. Loss is the great unifier, the terrible club to which we all eventually belong.”

a Christmas story

This particular Christmas story is hard for me to write. But I've already burst into tears about it at least three times today, so hopefully I'll make it through.

My dad owned a lot of ties. And when I say a lot, I mean...he probably had at least 75 ties hanging up in his closet. He had ties of every shape, color, and pattern--from silly ones covered in smiley faces or the Three Stooges, to ties with the nativity scene or a print of Monet's water lilies. Collected over the past thirty years, all of these ties hung on two very-overworked tie racks in a corner of the closet, each already tied to save him time in the mornings. These ties are closely linked to my memories of my dad--when I see them I immediately think of him, of times when he wore them.

When my dad died, my sister and I talked a few times about maybe each of us kids taking a few of the ties, since they represent such a vital link to his personality. We didn't care too much what happened to most of his other clothes; button-up shirts and socks aren't that unique. But the ties speak to his character, to his humor and his interests and his personal style.

One day I went into my parents' closet to look for a purple tie (for a Clue costume party...yes. I am very cool.) and they were gone. My sister asked our Mom about the ties and she cryptically answered that, "they were taken care of." This was after my mom had donated most of his clothes and we were convinced that either she couldn't handle talking about them or, worse, she'd gotten rid of them all. I didn't hear anything about the ties for another month and a half. I figured the only tie we still had was the one my mom had put into the memory box, the white one we had decorated for Father's Day a million years ago. I tried to tell myself that this was fine. As I've learned from watching countless episodes of Hoarders, objects are not the memories themselves.

But this afternoon, after we'd all opened up our other gifts--with wrapping paper everywhere and stocking piled up haphazardly, with the baby upstairs taking a nap and the dog wandering around us begging for treats--my mom surprised us with a special Christmas gift.

She made each of us wait to open them at the same time. And when I pulled back the tissue paper, I immediately burst into tears. Far from getting rid of my dad's ties, my mom had taken them and sewn together the most beautiful pillows. Each pillow is created out of nine ties that were picked out specially for us--mine has his "Children of the World" tie, and an African looking tie, Jason got his golf ties, Chris his funny ties, my sister his floral ties. She even made a very beautiful pillow for Caleb, covered in brown ties for his Grandpa Brown. Even if he will never be able to remember him. Oh, and she also made two pillows out of almost thirty Christmas ties. Like I said, my dad had an impressive number of ties. And my mom is a beast.

 all of the pillows

 The tie pillows, for the four kids and Caleb

These creations might not mean much to other people, and they might see first the clashing patterns and prints. But all I see when I look at these are my dad. I see him wearing them, I see the face that was connected to the tie, I see the smile that was always on that face. And I see the love and dedication that my mom poured into these works of art.

None of us had any clue, though apparently plenty of other people knew about her project. She kept it completely secret--and I've been living with her! Every time I would walk out of the house to go to work, she would immediately start ironing the ties, pinning, sewing, cutting. She'd work furiously all day until it was about time for me to get off work. By the time I got home, she'd be sitting on the couch, watching TV and working on her puzzles for the day, like normal. I never suspected a thing.

She also made each of us a bigger pillow out of one of his favorite sweaters, familiar fabrics and patterns from my childhood. One of those sweaters is actually the one I remember my dad wearing in that first, awful dream I had about him after he died. But holding those pillows reminds me, if only slightly, of hugging my dad. Which is a really lovely thing.

I'm not surprised that she was able to make them, since I know she's really good at sewing. But I'm impressed that she kept it such a surprise. I'm amazed because they are so beautiful; I'm amazed at the amount of work it must have taken. I'm taken aback because I had underestimated how awesome and strong and creative my Mom could be, even during this most difficult time. And mostly I'm overwhelmed because they are absolutely the most perfect gifts for this Christmas.

thank you. 

"Come on, Come on, do the Loco-Motion with me!"

When I was in elementary school, I was part of an organization called American Heritage Girls. It was basically Girl Scouts for Christian schools--we earned badges and went on campouts and learned how to properly retire an American flag and how to make a fire. Yeah, troop #496!

Anyways, each year, AHG hosted a "Father-Daughter Dance." For a girl in elementary school, the dance was THE social event of the year. Even though I'm not a great dancer now--I require lots of friends who don't care if we look stupid and possibly alcohol in order to dance--I absolutely loved these things. There was always a theme and party favors and fun decorations. The Father-Daughter dances also meant lots of quality time alone with my dad, riding in the front seat of his car like a grown-up or teaching him the Electric slide. 

February 1997, second grade.

February 1999, forth grade.

February 2000, fifth grade. Disco theme!

February 2001, sixth grade. Sock hop!

I think now what these dances would have looked like to an outsider: lots of awkward dads dancing in circles with little girls, dads fumbling through the Macarena, giggling girls showing off their corsages to their friends. The conga line to "Do the Loco-motion!" snaking around the tables set up in some school's gym. Punch and cookies and a bored photographer taking pictures of the happy little girls and their dads. 

Basically, it's one of the most beautiful things I can imagine.

The Un-hugged Hug

I am sad. Sometimes I can't even believe it; the emotions don't seem real, because I've never felt such an all-emcompassing, lingering, pervasive sense of sadness. It feels as though even on a good day, there is a layer of deep, overwhelming sadness just below my "surface" emotions: laughter at a joke, frustration with a stupid customer, stress over applications. No matter what I do or where I am, it's there.

I am broken. It's harder for me to hope for the future than it ever was before. It's hard for me to continue to trust that things will eventually work out for the best. It's harder for me not to feel lonely, to be fine with being single. It's harder for me to be happy for my friends who are getting married, who are in love, for whom good things are happening. It's harder for me to get up in the mornings. All I can see are empty years stretching out into the future.

I am overcome with worry. I worry for my mom, with everything there is to take care of and remember and organize and deal with. I worry about money. I worry that I have no idea about how to be an adult, or taking care of car troubles, or paying taxes. I worry about having to face the holidays ever year. I worry about being alone. I worry for my grandparents. I worry that soon we'll lose them too.

I am resentful. I resent that this situation is happening. I resent people who take for granted their parents, their good fortune, their health. I even resent people who don't take it for granted, who are rightfully joyous and grateful when miracles occur in their lives. I'm jealous of the miracle. I resent people who try to comfort me with platitudes or heaven or Bible verses. It's just not enough to break through this pain, not yet. Not yet. I resent that I have no choice but to be messed up and sad and broken, for the foreseeable future. I think about how I feel now, then I think about how every person I've talked to says, "It's never going to be okay." It's not that I want to be "okay" with my dad dying, but I miss feeling like my life was whole. Not shattered, not missing a very huge and important piece. I miss feeling like there was a shape and a purpose to my life, a direction and a past. A life in which every moment unfolded brand new and bursting with possibilities.

I am bereft.

All I want to do right now is give my dad the biggest bear hug, to squeeze tight and hold on. I dream about it; I think about the exact details: how high I would lift my arms, how I'd stand on tiptoes, where my hands would meet, his arms around me. How I'd feel him telling me he loved me, the vibrations of his voice reverberating through us both. My arms ache with that un-hugged hug.

I just realized I don't remember our last hug. I don't remember the last time he told me he loved me. I do remember the last time I told him, just before he slipped away from me forever.

I dreamed I went to visit your grave last night, Daddy.

It was somewhere far away and hard to get to. The gravestones were built into this massive hill, so many too many huge gravestone and monuments, crowded together. People were everywhere and there were no trees or flowers. We had to push through everything, and I was constantly afraid I'd fall off the hill. We finally got to yours; we'd built a massive bronze bust on top of it for you. It was pretty ugly, Dad, I'm not going to lie.

I'm glad it's nothing like that in real life. But I worry, Daddy, about the cemetery, now that winter is coming. I know you're long gone but I think about your body, about your coffin, about piles of dead leaves and flowers wilted by the frost. I think about your bare grave site, since we can't put in the headstone until the spring. I'm sorry about that, Daddy. I wish you didn't have to lay there without something to mark where you are. I wish you didn't have to lie there at all, not yet, anyways.

The Rushdie-fication of my Dad (Or, How I Got Him to Read My Favorite Novel)

The last novel my dad ever read was Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children. He didn't finish--in fact, he only made it to page 75. But I'll never forget that he started to read my very favorite novel by an author I talk about far too often. Even if he didn't have time to finish it.

Over the past couple of years, my dad had read a few of my postcolonial African or Indian novels. He preferred to read nonfiction, because, as he told me whenever we jokingly argued about fiction vs. nonfiction, "there is just too much to learn about, and too little time!" He could most often be found making his way through thick tomes about the history of Africa or economics or astrophysics. That's when he wasn't working, or doing yardwork, or bicycling, or watching the game, or (somewhere in there) sleeping. But lately, he'd been making an effort to read "my" books, so that we could talk about my literary interests. He read Burger's Daughter by Nadine Gordimer and Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. The last book he did finish was Atlas Shrugged, which is also technically mine, though I've never gotten around to reading it.

But a few weeks before he died, he asked to borrow my copy of Midnight's Children. The copy I bought in Blackwells bookshop, in Oxford. The copy I carried with me everywhere as I desperately tried to get through it in a week. The copy I underlined and highlighted and dog-eared. The copy I spilled tea on. The copy where the binding is splitting right at the midnight moment when India becomes independent and Saleem is born (how fitting!).

One of our last conversations over dinner Sunday night--the night before his stroke--was about Midnight's Children. He asked if it could be considered "stream-of-consciousness," I rambled on a bit about how it wasn't but it was written to seem like he was telling his story aloud. We talked about how his experience of visiting the Taj Mahal in 1979 wasn't anything like Rushdie's description of it: "whose outdoor corridors stink of urine and whose walls are covered in graffiti and whose echoes are tested for visitors by guides although there are signs in three languages pleading for silence" (Rushdie 73). I laughed and said, I guess they'd cleaned it up a bit by then. We talked about that scene in Slumdog Millionaire when Jamal and his brother (Salim!) took rich Americans on tours around the Taj and then stole their shoes. He talked about how much he was enjoying reading a book about India, how it reminded him of being there.

It wasn't a profound discussion, but it was real. I was blessed to have a dad so eager to share in and understand my passions, even if they weren't exactly his own. I'll never forget that we shared that book, and that moment, right before he passed away.

"Now Salahuddin found better words, his Urdu returning to him after a long absence. We're all beside you, Abba. We all love you very much. Changez could not speak, but that was--was it not?--yes, it must have been--a little nod of recognition. He heard me."

Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

What Dreams May Come

"To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause."

--Hamlet

I've always had very vivid, memorable dreams. I don't know if this is because my imagination is that much more powerful than other people's, or if it's simply because I dream right before I wake up. I'm not an expert on dream theory, or anything. But I wake up most mornings with clear, detailed memories of the things my brain dreamed about the night before. Often these dreams feature celebrities--exactly who stars in my dreams depends on what TV show or book I'm currently obsessed with. When I was a freshman in college, I dreamt about characters from the TV show Lost almost every single night, because I watched at least one episode a day (and thought about it when I wasn't watching it). Last year I would frequently dream that I was in the Holocaust because my class on the subject made such a deep impression on me.

But not only do I remember who showed up in the dream, or what crazy and illogical things happened, but I remember sensations. And feelings. I'll wake up with the distinct memory of someone's arms wrapped around me. Or of sunshine, warm on my face. I still vividly remember a moment from a dream I had a few years ago: I was standing with my eyes closed, possibly in a field. I could feel the sun on my face, and I could see its light through the red of my closed eyelids. I felt such a feeling of bliss that I began running towards the sunlight, eyes still closed, yet fearless of falling. It was beautiful.

Usually, though, these dreams just feature situations or people I'm stressed about. I've had a series of dreams over the past couple of years in which I reunite with an old friend. Things ended on somewhat bad terms, and we never speak anymore. When I'm awake, I don't really mind; people grow apart. But when I dream, I seem to constantly run into her, and I always say exactly what I wish I could say in real life. I dream about conversations I wish I could have, about stressful work situations, or about the things I fear.

But dreams usually have an element of absurdity that make them less upsetting. I wake up and think, "Why would I suddenly have to swim across a lake in order to clock out at work?" or, "There's no possibility of having that guy's baby, why worry about it happening?" I mean, I've dreamed about being shot by Tommy Lee, about being in a Soviet gulag, about my little brother Marvin being killed (who's Marvin? He certainly wasn't Jason), and about a talking wolf attacking me in my backyard. To name a few. Re-examining the strange, off-kilter aspects of the dream help me remember that they're just dreams. That they have no relevance, no real influence on my life--no matter how many details I can remember, or how strongly I could see or hear or smell or feel things within the dream.

But here comes the catch. I dream vividly about the situations that upset me--ergo, I have started dreaming about my dad. A couple of weeks ago I had a dream that still haunts me. In this dream, I was in a department store, and I saw a girl I was friends with in high school. We were chatting when someone else came up to talk to me. I turned to look, and felt this completely visceral shock--It was my dad! Alive! And talking to me! I remember that sensation of shock and amazement running through my whole body. I felt it in my stomach, my feet, my heart. Later, I tried to think up the right simile for the feeling: an electric shock, a bullet to the stomach...Mostly it was like my entire body flinched, I was so surprised.

But then, moments later, I thought...wait, this is a dream, isn't it, because my dad is dead. He can't come back to life. And then I grew profoundly sad because it was such a vivid dream. The details were perfect. My brain had gotten his voice, his mannerisms, his face exactly right. I even recognized his sweater. (It was a thick, reddish, plaid one. He would wear it a lot during the winter, around Christmastime.)

There was nothing absurd about him. There was nothing to mitigate the emptiness that followed the heady moment when I thought my dad was alive. There was nothing to make those dream moments any less horribly sad than my waking ones.

Anger

Yesterday, my mom and I went to church for the first time since. I don't really think I need to put anything after the "since." Since THEN. That's enough.

Anyways.

In the middle of some random song about how God Reigns, I became absolutely furious. I was seething. Next to me, my mom was crying and some lady was hugging her and praying, and I could have seriously punched someone. It was pretty strange. I wasn't mad at anyone. I wasn't pissed about something someone said, or even about the words in the song. I don't know what set me off; I only know that suddenly I was totally incensed. It's almost funny (except that it's not)--during a lovely prayer given by a lovely old man in our church, I could have burned holes in the wall behind him with my Evil Glare.

I suppose I was mad at God. I got my first taste of the anger of grief--How dare you? How dare I be expected to "Rest in God's Comfort" or to "Trust in His Will"? How dare this situation? How dare these people stand there, all moved by the Spirit? How dare those stupid saxophones blare away when my dad is GONE? I started thinking about how much the words of that song would have meant to my dad...how he truly trusted in them, how he was empowered by the strength and encouragement he gathered from them. Let me be clear--this wasn't one of those moments where you think, "Ha. He believed those words, but clearly they didn't save him. They must be just a bunch of meaningless feel-good platitudes."

I mean, I don't know if I'll have one of those moments in the future. Probably.

But it mostly made me sad, because I feel like I've gained a more clear understanding, since he has died, of how important his faith was to my dad. I was saddened to imagine what he might have felt if it had been a normal Sunday, and he was standing next to my mom, rather than just me. (I'm a pretty poor substitute.) And somehow, that sadness was translated into anger. I just couldn't believe. this. all. was. happening.

I don't really have a resolution to this story. The anger faded away about as quickly as it had come on--I laughed along with the skit involving the children's pastor and the monkey puppet as much as I would have otherwise. I tried to listen to the sermon as best as I could.

After the service though, someone in the congregation came up to my mom and me. (Oh gosh, I can't remember his name.) He said he hoped he wasn't overstepping himself, but he just wanted to say that sometimes everything anyone says, entire church services even, can just sound like, "blah, blah, blah." All the "We'll be praying for you's." All the "Thinking of you's." That they can all sound like nothing more than white noise--all the things about God's faithfulness, or his strength, or even that verse in Amazing Grace about how 'twas Grace that brought us safe this far, and Grace will lead us home. It's just "blah blah blah" in the face of the grief that we're feeling. And that that's okay. We just need to leave a door open in our hearts. Someday, he said, we'll be able to hear the words, and someday they'll make sense.

And I thought...hmm, maybe I did hear a pretty relevant message this morning.

The Clutter of a Life Well-lived

My mom and I started the process of cleaning out my dad's office today. We ran into one of my dad's partners, Dr. Hunter, as we went in. When we told him why we were there, he gave me such a sad look. Not entirely a look of pity (I am just about sick of those, by now), but a look of such genuine sadness. He and my dad worked side-by-side for thirty years. I haven't even been alive for that long. I could tell it hurt him to see the cardboard boxes almost as much as it hurt us to be carrying them.

It was pretty difficult to bear at first. Nothing had been disturbed for several weeks; every post-it note and medical journal and letter were exactly where he had placed them. It was as if he had only just walked out of the room and would return shortly. That messy office was just packed full of things that shouted out my dad's personality...everything pointed to the man he was.

There were pictures of family on every available space. I'd wondered where those pictures of us at all those Father-Daughter dances had ended up. He had a badly painted rock on his desk (I'm thinking it was an art project of Jason's). He had a desk drawer full of pamphlets given to him by drug reps. He once told me that he felt bad if he didn't at least listen to their pitch, since they brought free food. Another desk drawer was stuffed full of tracts--he had often handed them out to his patients, telling them about God and encouraging them to seek Him out. I found a copied page from an old book that exhorted physicians to direct their patients toward the Lord, stating that doctors have a unique opportunity in people's lives during a time when they are most open to hearing about God. He had golf mugs, golf picture frames, and golf comic strips taped to his filing cabinet. He had a giant bookshelf full of books about infectious diseases. There was a certificate given to him from the UC College of Medicine, thanking him for serving as a mentor to some med students. The little write-up at the bottom of the page lauded my dad's "Sherlock Holmes-ian" approach to diagnosing infectious diseases. Taped up all over the walls were cryptic notes, letters from other doctors, printed-out emails, phone numbers, and reminders. He had a beautiful wooden clock carved to resemble a Gothic church, given to him by a grateful patient. I found a piece of paper hanging up with a child's footprints on it, and when I smilingly pointed it out to my mom, she turned it over. It said, "Love, JessicA 1993."

If you didn't know my dad, you could understand a lot about who he was by looking through that office. He loved God. He loved his family. He was an enthusiastic golfer. He was a very intelligent man, and a diligent doctor. He was loved by his patients. He had a good sense of humor about life and about his job.

And most of all, he was certainly not done living yet.

I'm not Crazy, I'm not Crazy

I'm starting the long journey of resetting my expectations, of reorienting my reference points for my life and the way that I perceive the world. That's a fancy way of saying that I'm trying to figure out how to live my life in this brave, new world.

Part of that is coming to grips with the truth that, for a while, I am not going to be acting like myself. I feel like grief is this horrible phase I am forced to go through, when I'm not even sure how I will react to things. In some ways, I'm stronger than I ever imagined: I stood over my dad's deathbed, held his hand, and promised I'd make him proud. I wrote his obituary. I stood for four hours and shook hands with and hugged hundreds of well-wishers at the visitation. (I cried a lot, but not the whole time.) I felt an incredible and God-given peace while at the cemetery.

In other ways, I'm weaker than I was before. I'm not talking about succumbing to tears or feeling heartbroken. That is not weakness. That is how you know that the love you felt was profound. I'm talking about moments when I'm suddenly caught off guard with unconnected emotions. One example: last night, I went to Chipotle to order food for my mom and myself. Since I was ordering more than one thing, I had to multi-task to make sure each item had the right toppings, and at the same time tell the cashier what I was ordering. And suddenly, I felt so overwhelmed. I got flustered, my throat went dry, and my hands started shaking. The poor girl behind the counter told me to take my time, I was so visibly upset by trying to make sure everything was right.

I finally paid and walked back to my car, and I couldn't understand why in the world I'd gotten so upset about ordering a couple of burritos. I'd never before experienced that feeling of drowning right where I stood, as if suddenly everything was strange and off-kilter and upsetting. It was weird.

But I know that I'm not crazy. I haven't suddenly developed schizophrenia, or something. I just have a huge pain in my heart, a pain that is so fundamental that it affects everything I do. The shock of this past week's events have shaken me up so badly that ordering two things at once at Chipotle was somehow too much for me to handle. I know that things will get better. And that it's okay for me to experience moments like this. I just have to learn to work around them.

I hope all that doesn't sound too melodramatic.

"The act of living is different all through. Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."
--C.S. Lewis

I don't know where to begin.

My whole life has changed. Everything is different now. Every relationship, every interaction, every minute of everyday will be altered by the knowledge that my dad is gone. Every book I read and every movie I watch and every song I hear will be colored slightly differently because of that truth. It's as if there is a massive stone block set down inside my heart with the words MY DAD IS DEAD chiseled into the side. It's cold and heavy and rough on the edges. The words echo around my chest and repeat endlessly in my brain: dead dead dead dead dead. Every thought, every feeling I have brushes up against that cold, rough stone before coming out of me.

In the past few days I have become an expert at putting off thoughts, at setting them aside to be considered later when I can handle it. Thoughts like, Dad will not be at my someday wedding. The man I someday marry will never have met my dad, the most important person in my life. Dad will never know my someday kids. He won't be there to be proud of me if I get through graduate school, or proud of me anyways if I don't. An endless string of Christmases and Thanksgivings without him.

Then there are the thoughts I can't escape, but wish I could: I never got to say goodbye. All I could think about Monday night was what I wanted to say to him the next morning at the hospital. I wanted to take his face in my hands, look into his eyes, and tell him, "I will love you forever." He would look at me, maybe unable to speak, but we would both know he understood me. It's remarkable how simple things are when death is so close--now I have a million things I would like to say to my dad, thanks and questions and jokes and promises--but all I wanted to say, all there really was to say, is "I love you." I just wanted him to hear me tell him, one last time, and maybe he would be able to hear all that extra stuff in my voice.

But I never got the chance, he was too far gone.

And I know that he loved me, and I know he knew that we all loved him right back. Yet that doesn't take away the hurt and the loss of not being able to tell him at the last.

I find myself thinking about small, insignificant things, like the socks he wore, the color of his wallet. The way that his wedding ring had created two huge calluses on his finger over the years. The smell of his clothes. The clinking sound I'd hear from down the hall when he put his car keys and change on his dresser. How he would clean his glasses with a paper towel at the kitchen sink. How safe I felt when he hugged me.