I am finding that life with grief can bring about the strangest mix of emotions. Sometimes I feel perfectly fine, even optimistic, only to suddenly feel the deepest sense of loss and fear for the future. Sometimes I can laugh at a joke and then suddenly miss my dad terribly. Sometimes in the middle of an intensely painful conversation, I feel a sense of encouragement and completion.
Most of the times, these mood shifts are bewildering--the constant ambivalence between happy and sad feels far too unstable. A while ago, I went to a party out of town with some friends. I had a wonderful evening, but on the long drive back home I became so incredibly and inexplicably sad. As we drove, we listened to Adele's new album and "Lovesong" came on, a song I'd been dreading through the first ten songs. A few days after my dad died, I was listening to Adele and I seemed to hear the words of this song for the first time. Even though I know it's actually a cover of a Cure song, and it's probably about some ex-girlfriend...it breaks my heart every time I hear it.
"However far away, I will always love you / However long I stay, I will always love you / Whatever words I say, I will always love you / I will always love you"
It reminds me of what I wanted so badly to say to my dad, that day he died. As he lay there in that hospital bed, unconscious, unhearing, unseeing. I desperately wanted to tell him--no, not just tell him, I wanted to communicate to him, "I will love you forever." Since that day those unsaid words haunt me. They echo in my head, they come to me at random moments.
So there I am, driving home from a fun party with two friends, happily discussing one's married life and the other's upcoming wedding, talking about school, work, friends...and I'm sitting in the darkened backseat, quietly crying to myself. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd said something. I wish I hadn't waited until the friend that I was staying with went to bed so I could weep under the covers in solitude. I felt so, so alone...but I was surrounded by people who would have listened. And I know this now; I knew this then. Yet I kept it to myself.
I don't know why. I have a lot of regrets these days. Most of them are the minute, sorta cliche regrets of grief: "I wish I hadn't been so annoyed that time Dad would NOT stop talking about Maine blueberries when we were at that restaurant in Bar Harbor." or "I wish I'd asked him about his life." or "If only I'd driven to Fort Hamilton Hospital to see him in the ER instead of waiting for him to be moved to University Hospital."
But some of them are regrets for after his death: I regret how I neglect my friends. I regret how self-absorbed I've been these past few months. I regret not trying to find comfort in the Bible afterwards. Maybe that would have made a difference. I regret.
I've been thinking about this post again because what it meant in my relationship with my dad. It will always be linked in my mind for that. I know I told you that I had that talk with him because I read this. I had been procrastinating saying those things because I was afraid it was too early, like I was encouraging him to die. But you spoke to me in this post, and we talked. It's one of my most precious memories. As it happened, it was also the last night we were ever alone together and could have said those things. Thank you, my friend. You gave me a precious gift through this.
ReplyDeleteAmy, it's things like this that make my grief a little bit easier to bear. Though not having a chance for those last words will always be painful to me, I am glad something so good could come out of that experience. I have a related story to talk about with you when I see you.
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