Last

October 16, 2011.

This is, I'm nearly certain, the last picture anyone took of my father. We ate our first dinner out on the new patio, and then we sat around the fire pit we got Dad for Father's Day. I told them to squeeze together so I could take a picture. 

Last picture, last conversation, last dinner, last laughter, last love.
How unprepared we always are.

How to Let Go

One of the most confusing aspects of grief is the sneaking conviction that you're doing it wrong.

You start thinking to yourself, "Surely, I should be okay by now, right?" Even though all the books and all your friends tell you there's no right way to grieve...You can't help but wonder whether it's okay to still be sad. A couple of weeks ago was the anniversary of my trip to Maine last year with my parents. Those days were some of my last, best memories with my Dad. I had been trying to get work done all day, but I was really struggling. So at one point I was laying on my bed bawling and I suddenly wondered what my Dad would say if he could see me. Moping around and crying, a year later, just because he died. I thought, would he be disappointed? Would he say, That's nice of you, honey, but enough is enough.

It's been nearly a year since he died. That's such a distinct and knowable amount of time. Eleven months doesn't sound that long, but a year...that has weight. It has meaning. As a student, your life is broken up into years. Each fall represents a chance to start over, to make new friends and new memories--a clear demarcation between then and now. But now the changing leaves, the brisk wind, the dreary, grey skies all remind me of last year, the days when the weather outside echoed my feelings inside.

I read somewhere that grief is a shapeshifter. It's true. You think you figure something out, then suddenly you're completely lost again. Wait, how do I live without my Dad? I find myself going through emotions I thought I'd dealt with. I find myself feeling resentment over something I thought I'd made peace with. I find myself worrying at night, when I'd been sleeping well for months and months.

I was reminded of an advice column I read after my Dad died. "Sugar" is the pen name of Cheryl Strayed, a writer who happened to lose her mother at 22. One letter she received was from a man who felt helpless in the face of his fiancee's grief over the loss of her own mother, ten years before.

She starts off her response with a story:

"Several months after my mother died I found a glass jar of stones tucked in the far reaches of her bedroom closet. I was moving her things out of the house I’d thought of as home, clearing way for the woman with whom my stepfather had suddenly fallen in love. It was a devastating process—more brutal in its ruthless clarity than anything I’ve ever experienced or hope to again—but when I had that jar of rocks in my hands I felt a kind of elation I cannot describe in any other way except to say that in the cold clunk of its weight I felt ever so fleetingly as if I were holding my mother.

That jar of stones wasn't just any jar of stones. They were rocks my brother and sister and I had given to our mom. Stones we’d found as kids on beaches and trails and the grassy patches on the edges of parking lots and pressed into her hands, our mother’s palms the receptacle for every last thing we thought worth saving.

I sat down on the bedroom floor and dumped them out, running my fingers over them as if they were the most sacred things on the earth. Most were smooth and black and smaller than a potato chip. Worry stones my mother had called them, the sort so pleasing against the palm she claimed they had the power to soothe the mind if you rubbed them right.

What do you do with the rocks you once gave to your dead mother? Where is their rightful place? To whom do they belong? To what are you obligated? Memory? Practicality? Reason? Faith? Do you put them back in the jar and take them with you across the wild and unkempt sorrow of your twenties or do you simply carry them outside and dump them in the yard?" 

---Cheryl Strayed, "The Black Arc of It" 

A year ago, I would have said, Of course--throw out the stupid rocks. They aren't your mother. But now, as I'm facing the long years without my father, I'm not so sure.

I worry about forgetting. I think about how we all eventually get relegated to stories, to a small box filled with inconsequential items--a pair of glasses, a watch, a book, a smooth stone. And I guess that is the natural order of things, that people fade from life and then fade from our memories. But I'm having a hard time accepting that truth right now. I just want him to stay. I just want him to always be present in my heart. I want to remember my Dad, the things he taught me, his smile. I want to honor his memory. I don't want the anniversaries to pass like any other day. I want to sit with the grief and know it as part of who I am. I want to give thanks for it.

How do you begin to let go?

Sugar ends her letter by encouraging the man to simply bear witness to his fiancee's grief: It'll never be okay, but that's okay. There isn't an expiration date on the sadness of losing a parent at a young age. I have to remind myself that I'm still very close to it all--I won't be able to see whether I've been "doing it right" for a very long time. I have to hold on to the hope, the faith, that someday it will be different:

"Next week it will be twenty years since my mother died. So long I squint every time the thought comes to me. So long that I've finally convinced myself there isn't a code to crack. The search is over. The stones I once gave my mother have scattered, replaced by the stones my children give to me. I keep the best ones in my pockets. Sometimes there is one so perfect I carry it around for weeks, my hand finding it and finding it, soothing itself along the black arc of it."

Am I holding on to my own worry stones? Have I wrapped my grief around my shoulders like a security blanket? Am I clutching my sadness to my breast, so that he doesn't fade away? But if I'm no longer actively grieving...am I actively forgetting my Dad? I just really don't know.

Maybe in another year I'll have a better perspective--or in ten, or twenty. For now, I just don't know.

Perhaps I'm so worried about this because we're approaching Year One. Or perhaps it's because so much is changing in my life right now. And while it's good and exciting and refreshing, I find myself grasping desperately onto things I know. To people I love. To my family and to my memories. To the smooth stones (and hopes and dreams and questions) I once entrusted to my Dad's strong hands, the safest place for them.

(Postsecret).

One more miracle

"But, please, there's just one more thing, one more thing, one more miracle, Sherlock, for me. Don't be...dead. Would you do that just for me? Just stop it. Stop this."

--John Watson, Sherlock

sunrise on mt. cadillac

"No matter what happens now,

you shouldn't be afraid

because I know today has been the most perfect day I've ever seen."

 --radiohead

a year ago, today.

the coast of Maine; six a.m. sunrise.

the land, the ocean, the wind---

transcendence.


Exactly one month later, Dad suffered the stroke that killed him. It's funny how we never know what's coming. If we only knew---how much tighter we'd hold on, how we'd say to ourselves: I will remember this.

How I'd have taken pictures with my heart, not just with my camera: faces uplifted to greet the sun. Blueberry pancakes, hikes through the woods, wildflowers. A sheltering arm against the wind. Harmless squabbles, dinner over wine and laughter. Admiring the brightness of the stars.

How much more I would have said, if I'd known how soon he'd join those stars.

On Becoming a Bearcat

Hey Dad,

You've been on my mind and my heart a lot lately.

It's not just that your birthday is next Wednesday, on the fifth. It's not just that looking at all these class schedules reminds me how soon October 18th is--I now know that it's a Thursday, when I have to teach and attend two graduate classes. It'll be a rough day.

But that's not why I've been thinking about you so often lately. I've been reminded of you continually because the University of Cincinnati is still so new and present for me. I still notice the buildings, the signs, the stadiums and the spirit wear. I'm working on reconciling my memory of the campus with my new needs: the fastest way between McMicken and the library, the best place to eat a quick lunch, the route home that involves the least uphill walking. Each day I pause, look around me and think, I like it here. I like the campus and the people. I like the energy and the history and the newness.

Each moment when I get a sense of rightness, a sense that I'm right where I should be, I think of you and the love you always had for your alma mater. I've always cherished the memories of when you'd take us to Bearcat basketball games. We'd park in Burnet Woods to save money, we'd walk down the hill and through campus to the Shoemaker Center. We'd sit up high and join in with the other fans singing the cheers, shouting "Go Home!" or "So What?" as the opposing team members were announced. You know I barely care about sports but I always had such a good time. I remember once we beat Marquette, or maybe it was Louisville, right at the buzzer and everybody stayed and cheered for nearly ten minutes afterwards. We just went crazy. Sometimes we'd leave right after it ended, but you always stayed long enough to sing along with the UC Alma Mater. I could never understand the words, (except Varsity, dear Varsity), but you knew them all. You'd take off your hat and sing along so proudly. Then we'd leave, listening in to the interview with Bob Huggins on 700 WLW on the drive home.

I think about you, here, in this place. I think about which buildings you probably took classes in as an undergrad, and which buildings are definitely after your time. I think about how you probably took a 1970s version of English Composition 1001, maybe from a graduate student instructor like me. I try to imagine Langsam Library in the 70s--no computers and...I don't know, wood paneling and shag carpet. I think of you reading biology textbooks and diligently taking notes. Maybe Dad looked out these exact windows, I thought today, as I sat at a table struggling to read Michel Foucault. (He's a French literary theorist. Yeah.)

A friend said to me the other day that our lives, yours and mine, are merging in the space/time continuum. (Ever seen Doctor Who?) That somehow, right now, I'm living a life parallel to yours during your undergraduate and med school years, despite how different our experiences are. Everything was ahead of you then, just like things are for me now. It's a pretty remarkable thing.

It's remarkable because I didn't exactly plan to attend "your" university. Before you died, I'm pretty sure I blatantly told you I wasn't considering UC because I absolutely would not stay in Cincinnati. I never thought you were disappointed in that, and I know you would have been excited for me no matter where I ended up. I didn't even decide to apply until after you died, because I realized I didn't want to be far away from our family. I wish I had made that decision without your death. I wish I could have shared with you my good news--acceptance and a full scholarship and a teaching job and a stipend--from UC, your dear Varsity.

I don't know if you would have said anything to me about being glad that I chose UC. I don't even know if you'd have mentioned it to Mom, or to a friend. But I like to think (and you're not around to contradict me), that you would have been secretly so happy.

I know you were (and are and will always be) proud of me. When I got accepted, Dad, aside from wanting to just share my news, I wanted to thank you. I know I said these things during my goodbyes, but seriously--thanks, Dad. Thanks for teaching me to read. Thanks for sharing with me your love of learning. Thanks for believing in me. Thanks for contradicting me when I made self-disparaging comments about how I'll never get into graduate school. Thanks for showing up at my concerts, my award ceremonies. Thanks for threatening to take away my violin if I didn't start practicing more. Thanks for reading my Honors project. I always dreamed that if I ever wrote a book, I'd dedicate it to you and Mom, and that's still true. Someday, if I ever finish my dissertation, you're going on the first page. You got me here, and you've made it special.

I wish I could share this experience with you, Dad. I wish you could have helped me move in. I imagine that you would have worn a Bearcats t-shirt, and a Bearcats baseball cap. I imagine you and Mom driving down for an evening. We'd go to a game or a CCM concert, then eat dinner at Ambar India and I'd walk back to my apartment. I imagine that we'd all walk around campus before the game, and you and Mom would tell stories about classes, about meeting each other, about your memories of being so young and full of promise.

I wish I could buy you a stupid, overpriced "Proud UC Dad" bumper sticker.

The Hill

So here we are.

I've officially moved into my new apartment.

My books are all unpacked and organized. I decided on the exact placement of my posters, my African souvenirs, my clothes. I haven't finished organizing the kitchen yet but I'm not worried. I've got my kettle and my mugs unpacked; that's enough. I figured out a few new shortcuts to avoid traffic and one-way streets. I explored the CVS that's less than a block from my house, successfully navigated to a part of Cincinnati I'd never been to before, and deposited a check at my neighborhood bank. I filled out a form with my new address for the postal worker.

I went on a walk this morning. I woke up before nine to sunlight streaming into my room--a new feeling, since my bedroom at home faces west. When I realized it was only 75 degrees outside, I knew I just had to get out and enjoy it. So I decided to time the walk from my apartment to McMicken Hall, the building that houses the English department and where I'll be spending the majority of my time on campus.

McMicken Hall

It's on Clifton Avenue, a major artery for the area around the University of Cincinnati, and one of the most recognizable buildings on campus. I live a ways down Clifton, in a neighborhood called the Clifton Gaslight District. It's full of old houses, even older trees, and the fabulous Ludlow Avenue business district, featuring one of the only indie movie theaters in Cincinnati, my favorite Indian restaurant, and, of course, Graeter's ice cream. Plus a post office, my bank, the library, and a hookah bar. Everything I need. (Just kidding, of course!)

The only problem about living in this great area is walking up the hill between my apartment and UC's West Campus. Between Ludlow and Martin Luther King Drive, you face this steady and steep incline that's over half a mile long. (Thanks, Google Maps.) Some of you might remember me complaining about Headington Hill in Oxford. (Or you know it yourself.) When I was studying abroad over there, I was too cheap to buy a bike or a bus pass; both would have cost around 100 pounds,  or $175-200. So I walked everywhere for three months.

We lived in this house outside city centre, at the top of the infamous Headington Hill. To get to any of the libraries, the SCIO office, or my tutorials, I generally had to walk a minimum of forty minutes. And it was much longer going back up the hill. Obviously, it was good for my fitness level, but I HATED that hike. Every day, I would pause on the corner of Marston and Headington, take a breath, and readjust the straps of my bookbag, which was inevitably full of books and groceries and a half-gallon of milk. I dunno. It seemed like I was always carrying jugs of milk up that freaking hill.

Headington Hill

It was a beast of a hill. I always thought, "maybe if I don't buy groceries this week, I can buy a bus pass!" I often stopped in the middle because I just had to take a break. I'd stand there, panting, sweat soaking through my cardigan, and some fit English person would run past me up the hill.

RUN. UP THE HILL. When I could just barely walk it. I always felt like I wasn't good enough to challenge Headington.

But the Clifton Avenue hill is longer than Headington! And once you get to the top of that hill, you only have a short relief before you have to tackle a much steeper, though shorter, hill to actually reach McMicken! Living in the northern suburbs, you forget just how hilly Cincinnati really is. Which is very.

But I was thinking today about hills, both literal and metaphorical. I was thinking that these two long, steep hills are a great metaphor for where I'm at right now. It's a hike, it's a slog, and sometimes you've got to carry all your baggage along. No matter how much you might want to drop the books and let the milk jug roll into the street. Sometimes, you give everything you've got and you're still being passed by skinny people in fancy workout clothes.

There is a point on Clifton--and on Headington Hill--when I always think: Okay, it's never going to end. I'm gonna have to stop. Maybe I'll just drive! You feel like the hill, the struggle, goes on forever. But then suddenly, almost imperceptibly, you realize that you've arrived at the top. Sometimes you focus so hard on the hill that you're distracted from the truth: you are actually doing it. Even if you're sweating or panting or swearing under your breath, all that truly matters is the fact that you've progressed up the hill. Eventually, the ground evens out and the steps come easier.

It's been a really hard year. At times, I felt like I'd never get past the moments of deep grief, but slowly the happy memories have outweighed the sad ones. At times, I felt that I'd never be secure in my choices. That I would always lie awake at night, my mind scurrying after pointless "What Ifs" and "Why Haven't I's." At times, I felt that peace and excitement and joy would never outweigh anxiety, loneliness, and frustration. At times, I felt like I'd never survive the Hill.

And yet, and yet. Here I am.

I definitely have a lot of uncertainty about the coming two years--I don't really know anyone yet, I don't know if I'll be good at teaching, I don't know if I can hack it at grad school, I don't know if I have what it takes to be a full-time scholar. I don't even know who will be my roommate next year! But I feel really good, really definite, in a way I haven't for a long time. I am happy. I am optimistic. I am ready.

After all the struggle and heartache of this past year, I looked around today and suddenly realized that the ground is pretty level. I've made it, for now. It's enough.