Finding the Right Words

Exactly two years ago today, as we waited for the moment when we would remove Dad's life support, I kept on trying to remember the lines spoken over Hamlet's body at the end of Shakespeare's play. I felt that I ought to say some sort of benediction, some final word befitting the man that he was:

Good night, Sweet Prince...and heaven sings you to your rest.

I knew those weren't exactly right. I'd never bothered to read all the way through Hamlet, though I had seen a couple film versions and could quote maybe half of the famous "To Be or Not to Be" soliloquy. I wasn't even sure who said the lines--was it Laertes? Was it Horatio?

Farewell, sweet prince...let...angels sing you to your rest?

I considered Googling it several times, but I knew that would require me to use my smartphone. I'd turned it off hours earlier. I didn't want to see pitying Facebook comments, or worse, messages from people who didn't know.

So I just kept on mixing up the words in my head. I tried to reconstruct the iambs in time to the beeping of the heart monitor, substituting words into the gaps in my rhythm. Sitting there in the hospital room, watching family and friends filter in and out to say their goodbyes to a man already gone, I fixated on finding the magic word order. Only exactly the right combination of those ten words would work. They wouldn't save him, I knew, but they might send him off right.

Good night, sweet prince. And heavens above sing you to your rest.

I never did say it aloud. I felt kind of silly, wanting to quote maudlin poetry over Dad's unconscious body in the Neuro ICU. Especially since I couldn't even remember the bloody words. My lapse seemed fittingly ironic: if I'd had more time, I would have studied elegies, researched good final lines from plays and movies. I would have found the perfect combination of words to send him off into the ether.

Sometimes, this seems like a fitting metaphor for what I've been doing these past two years. All this writing. All this talking. Just rearranging words and sentences, trying to find exactly the right order. Over and over. This time, I'll get it right. The right prayer to express my sorrow; the right incantation to heal my wounds.

So thanks to you, each of you, who have stuck with me through all these stumblings, these aborted and confused arrangements of words. Whether you've never met me, whether we've lost touch as friends, you're family, or you see me on campus every day. Thank you.

Dr. Timothy H. Brown, with baby Caleb

Sept. 5 1953-October 18, 2011

Horatio: Now cracks a noble heart. Good night, sweet prince,

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!     

Step 1: Panic, Step 2: Achieve Greatness

I'm currently having a mini-panic attack in the library here at Unviersity of Cincinnati about applying to PhD programs. So stressful! So many things to do! Such low chances that I'll get acceptances!

This is your brain on stress.

I have been agonizing for weeks about which programs to apply to, trying to balance rankings, funding, GRE requirements, faculty, location,and likelihood that I'll get in. Each is an impossible problem to solve, not only because I'm terrible about math. I never could quite get the hang of probability: (If you reach into your sock drawer in the dark, and you have six blue socks, eight red socks, and fifteen mismatched socks, what color sock will you most likely get? The answer is I have no freaking idea. Just turn on the lights).

And no, I don't want to know the answer, smarty pants. It was just a metaphor.

But the problem is also impossible because several of the factors are unknowable: I won't know if I get in until it happens. I don't know who else is applying. I don't know what budget problems the departments are facing this year. I don't know who will read my materials. I've tried to be thorough, but I can't research every program in the United States. What if I ignore the only school I'm "meant" to be at?

I was thinking, "man, I don't remember being this overwhelmed when I applied to MA programs!" And then I remembered, that's cause Dad had died a few weeks before. I barely remember most of that time, and I certainly don't remember if I was worried about my applications as I was pulling them together. Though I definitely wanted to go to graduate school, it was low on my list of daily hopes:

1. That this will all turn out to be a crazy dream.

2. If it isn't a dream, that I manage to get out of bed.

3. Get into a good MA program, I guess?

But I guess having much worse and upsetting things on your mind isn't exactly the best advice for not being stressed about something. Probably not a good idea to invite that sort of thing. So maybe it's about keeping the right perspective: I can do this. I've survived worse. I've done it before, sort of. It'll all work out somehow.

Okay, self: here is your mantra for today:

One year, ten months, ten days

I think I’m going to keep on declaring, every few months or years, that I’ve stepped into a new phase of grief after losing Dad. That I didn’t understand all the previous stages until now. I think I’m okay with this. 

Hope you don’t mind.

Someone was recently telling me about a distant mutual acquaintance, and how this woman’s husband had died suddenly last year. The friend admitted it had been especially sad because it had been so sudden. Then she said, motioning to me, “Well. You know.”

I nodded yes. I do know. But somehow…I think I meant it in the past tense: I once lost someone suddenly. It was a very painful, jarring experience.

Less than two years ago. I was lost in the haze of shock; nothing added up. Understanding what exactly had happened to me was like trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle on the edge of a black hole. The bits that I did tentatively fit together—I am still me, I still have my family. I’m going to grad school—scattered, often as not. Teetering on the edge of the darkness, I told myself to just focus on getting the edges in line. Just wait ‘til you get to episode seven. I bet that’s gonna be even better than episode six. I lost some bits entirely, I think. I’ve forgotten much of what it was like in high school, and even college. I remember what happened, but I have a hard time recapturing how I felt at 17, or 20. Sometimes I struggle to connect with my old friends, who knew me before.

I’ll never stop missing Dad. I’ll always have painful memories to conjure on my worst days, if I’m feeling masochistic. (And sometimes, I am.) I’ll never stop half-hoping that he might come back. But I’ve said this before, and I still mean it: I don’t wish my life to have gone any differently. I am stronger. I have more empathy. I try to be more open, more loving. I think I am a bit wiser.  

I see that day as a defining moment in my life. A crease in the page.

Everything before.

But here’s the best part: everything after.  

the perished

"There is so little to remember of anyone--an anecdote, a conversation at table. But every memory is turned over and over again, every word, however chance, written in the heart in the hope that memory will fulfill itself, and become flesh, and that the wanderers will find a way home, and the perished, whose lack we always feel, will step through the door finally and stroke our hair with dreaming, habitual fondness, not having meant to keep us waiting long." 

Marilynne Robinson, Housekeeping

Formosa, Argentina - Summer 2000

My Semester, in Under a Minute

Normally I like to write really long-winded, overly-earnest musing about my life. I like to take some small event, like walking up a hill or missing my exit on the interstate, to frame a heartfelt confession about how hard it is to live without Dad around. Or how hard it is to be an adult. Or how hard it is to be a teacher.

But today, I don't have the time. Today, I realized I'm slightly (read: extremelyveryalot) behind on work. I need to save my words and actually write that paper for my Teaching College Writing class that I've been procrastinating for ages. (I do appreciate the irony!) So here's how I've been feeling this semester, composed in Youtube videos under one minute. Enjoy.

How I felt at the beginning of the semester:

But a week later:

When it hit Week 6, I lost my mind:

And I had to resort to some pretty desperate measures:

And when I tried to look at my students research papers:

But then I saw this:

And watched this:

Now I feel like this:

And now, it's back to work. Hope you're all surviving whatever you've got going on. Never give up!

I'm...not even on the right highway.

The other day, I was driving home from dinner with some friends and a funny thing happened.
.
Here's a little context. For those of you who don't live here, Cincinnati has two main North-South interstates, I-71 and I-75. They shape a V around the inner part of the city--the two meet downtown at the Ohio River, and they spread out from one another as you go north into the suburbs.

Now that I live in Clifton, which is a couple miles north of downtown, I'm only a few minutes' drive from either interstate. But my apartment is slightly closer to I-75, and when I drive home from the East Side I like to take this short connector called "The Norwood Lateral" to 75 so I can get off at Exit 3, Hopple Street. Left onto Martin Luther King; left onto Dixmyth; left onto Whitfield. Cross Terrace, Howell, and Ludlow, and then it's the fourth house on the left. Easy Peasy.

Anyways, so there I was, driving south on I-71. I'm getting ready to get off on the Norwood Lateral, like normal, and I was thinking about the work I needed to get done.

I gotta try to read a good chunk of "Beloved."

And I need to do some more work on that stupid Writing Autobiography that's due Tuesday.

Oh shoot, and I should read some submissions for the Cincinnati Review.

I also need to start the reading for Teaching College Writing but that's totally not happen.

Suddenly I thought, "Wait, did I get on the Norwood Lateral??" I looked around and saw the lights of a strip mall up on a hill to the left and though, yeah, okay, that's the Target. It must be such a habit I didn't even notice taking the exit! So I continued driving. Ten minutes later, I started wondering why I hadn't hit I-75 yet and then realized I had never gotten off I-71 South in the first place. Um...oops! What I find funniest about this isn't that I missed my exit. It's that I thought I missed my exit, looked around, and completely and utterly misread everything. I didn't notice how everything looked different than it was supposed to. I didn't see the signs, the exits. I just blithely kept on driving.

This story isn't really that impressive, I know. I recently read something on the internet about a woman from Belgium who left her house intending to drive 50 miles west to pick her friend up from a train station, and accidentally drove east for two days. She ended up in Croatia.

But it got me thinking, and not just about faulty GPS systems or the dangers of absent-minded driving. And I'm not trying to make some cliche parallel to "not knowing what direction I'm going in" because I'm...fill in the blank: twenty-something, single, in grad school, the girl with the Dead Dad.

Instead, I was thinking about how sometimes it's all just so much. I feel like for every thing I do successfully--writing a paper, finishing a novel, teaching a good class or even having a drink with new friends--I drop three more things. The image that comes to mind is that guy at the circus who balances the spinning plates while riding a unicycle. Except that in this circus, he's shedding plates. The stage is littered with ceramic shards. The audience stares blankly at him; the wheel jerks unexpectedly as it rolls over the broken plates. This is the image I have of myself this semester.

Hermione, you lucky girl.

I saw a friend at a party recently who, when I told her I was "doing great!," just gave me that look. The yeah, right look.

But when the S hits the fan, my response is to deny, deny, deny. I think, if I just had that one thing! A boyfriend to make me feel special. Four more hours each day. A time-turner like Hermione Granger's. But this is never true. There is no magic wand you can wave to shorten your to-do list. You can't hire someone to do your reading. But you also can't stay chained to your desk.

(I'd end up like that lady in Kansas who had a phobia of not being able to get to the bathroom in time, so she sat on the toilet for two years. When they tried to help her out of there, she was stuck to the seat. Do not Google this.)

Sometimes I lose track of where I began. It's a symptom. Sorry.


Two years ago, I was in a similar place. My senior year of college sort of spun out of control. At one point, I tried to balance six classes (two of which happened at the same time), finish my 70-page honors thesis, work as a TA for the English department, be in the orchestra, do activities for the English Honors Organization, go to a conference, and spend time with my friends. C'est impossible!

I ended up quitting orchestra and taking time off after graduation--a great decision. After everything I have learned in the past year, though, I don't want to just start cutting things out. I don't want to simply shut down and retreat to my bedroom, like before. You have to bear up under what's really important. You have to keep moving forward, despite everything. You have to figure out a strategy, like Bradley Cooper's character in Silver Linings Playbook. (The acting was great, but the composition, weird, no?)

I feel very young, writing this. I know my older readers are either A) annoyed with my complaints or B) smiling and thinking, adorable. Either way. Have mercy on my young, misdirected soul. To bring back the navigation metaphor at the end of the piece: I'm doing my best to just stay on the damn highway. Wish me luck.

Equal Rights

sunrise from McMicken Hall

According to my page view statistics, there's at least one person who checks regularly to see if I've posted anything new. And to that one person, sorry for not writing often. It's just that--

"“The future, even when it was only a question-shrouded glimmer, would not be eclipsed by the past; even when death moved towards the centre of the stage, life went on fighting for equal rights.”
--Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

I'm happy to say that most of the time, my present life occupies my mind, rather than the past. I still miss Dad like crazy. I'm still occasionally caught off guard by moments of piercing grief. In late November, I was walking home after one of the most encouraging teaching moments of my life. I'd given a teaching demonstration in front of my Practicum class, my professor had used the phrase "the mark of a good teacher" to describe something I'd done instinctively, and I was just soaring down Clifton Ave afterwards. Then, all of the sudden, I felt such an ache because I wanted to call Dad. I wanted to call him and gush about finding a way that I can actually help people, I can connect to them and influence their lives--that I've looked up from the books and I can make the world a little better place. I know he'd say, "Well, honey, I'm not surprised." And I'd be so gratified. It's like, it's not an actual success until Dad tells me he's proud.

That's a hard thing.

But this isn't going to be a sad post. Because I'm not in a sad place; I'm in such a good place now. School is challenging and exciting, teaching is challenging and sometimes rewarding. The people here are wonderful. I love my neighborhood. In fact, I've been thinking lately about how passing the one year mark has given me a lot of perspective.

The first thing I see more clearly now is just how lost I was a year ago. Maybe everyone saw it except me. I used to think I was good at hiding how I really felt about stuff. But I've come to understand that I have the most obvious face, ever. Every single thought or emotion I have is telegraphed on my face; I can't help it! To everyone I've ever met: sorry I looked so annoyed that one time. I probably didn't mean for you to know.

Over the Christmas holiday this year, I decided to go back to Walmart to make a little extra money. While I was there, I ran into my favorite, favorite old lady named Marion. She's at least 83 and we were totally Walmart Besties. We were talking about school and she said something that really struck me: "You look so much happier!" At first I thought...Um, I look happy to be wearing these awful khaki pants, while I'm answering the phone at Walmart one day after finishing a 20 page paper? I didn't exactly feel spectacular, but then I realized she had known me during a very dark, very difficult time in my life. When--even as I laughed at a stupid customer or gleefully gossiped about some cashier we didn't like--the sadness was always right there, below the surface.

I really was adrift in my grief. But: working at Walmart is not one of the signs of how lost I was. Oddly enough, it was what kept me going. In the early days, the work was just enough to keep my mind occupied, so I wouldn't dwell on my Dad all day. It filled my time and wore me out, so I could actually sleep at night. And there are actually some incredibly wonderful people stuck working at places at Walmart. At first I got sympathy, and then afterwards, they left it alone unless I mentioned it. And I'm surprisingly grateful. It's hard to bear those looks of pity for very long.

And Walmart was exactly the right thing because I could clock out and not think about work until I walked in the next day. I know now I could not have managed school. I'm one of those students who becomes my classes. I eat, sleep, and breathe the assignments, my responsibilities, my work. Writing papers, even when they're just scholarly and not creative, requires a huge emotional and energetic commitment from me. I could not have focused last year. I struggled to simply fill out my grad school applications. One day when I thought my GRE scores hadn't gotten to Ohio State (ugh) in time, I broke down sobbing hysterically, out of the blue, because it was all just SO hard. I wonder now if my personal statements were exceptionally terrible. All I remember about that process was each time, I would write some thing about how Dad just died three weeks before and then I'd cut it out. My biggest goal was to not mention my dead Dad, so I couldn't really focus on my personal branding as a potential scholar and teacher. I was simply trying to survive. I see this now.

Everyone says, it's never okay, but it gets easier. And I think I finally know that to be true. I am grateful for everything that has happened in the past year. I'm grateful for understanding managers, for loving friends. I'm grateful that misery loves company, rather than isolation. I'm grateful for my siblings. I'm grateful that life provides the kind of relationships where you can sit crying on the kitchen floor with someone, as sad as it may seem. I'm grateful for kind words from students.

I'm grateful that life keeps on fighting for equal rights, despite everything.

The Joys of Teaching

So I don't really think I've written much--if anything--about my Master's program or my job as a Graduate Assistant teaching Freshman Composition at UC. It's the beginning of November, and things are going pretty well. My workload this semester isn't too intense. I'm not claiming to be some kind of genius...grad school is definitely a challenge. But two of my classes are sort of "introductory" and though my third class, English Renaissance Drama, is really interesting and challenging, the reading load is fairly light.

Despite this, I'm still busy most of the time. And it's all Teaching's fault.

Ah, teaching. It wearies my soul and gets me out of bed in the morning and makes me tear my hair out. Some days I really love it. I feel comfortable, they're engaged and learning. Last week I did a lesson on Genre and Audience using examples from the Harry Potter universe and they loved it. I do like my students. They're all remarkably hardworking and committed to the class, and their work is decent. They call me Professor Brown and they seem to respect me. I really like getting to know them individually. I want to invest in them, as much as I can, the way my professors invested in me in college.

But some days they drive me crazy. It can be difficult to get college students motivated about English at 8 in the morning. Sometimes their blank stares are so frustrating. Come on guys!, I enthuse, if you talk it'll be easier for all of us. And then we'll be done and you can leave. Don't you want to leave? It's like that scene in the classic 90s movie "Mrs. Doubtfire." Robin Williams tells the lady at the hiring agency that he "does voices." He then launches into a bunch of really funny impressions, but she never cracks a smile. She asks, "Mr. Hillard, do you consider yourself humorous?" And he calmly replies, "I used to. There was a time when I found myself funny. But today, you have proven me wrong."

My students.

Me.

Just kidding. It's never quite that bad. Most of the time when my students are quiet or turn in atrocious work, it just makes me laugh. They're so adorably clueless sometimes. There's one kid who's a great student. But whenever I ask the class if I need to explain an assignment further, he just gives the slowest, saddest, most world-weary shake of his head. hahaha...Please.

A friend in my Practicum class recently described our role when we grade papers as similar to an Emergency Room doctor's: we assess the injuries and try to patch up the most critical ones first. We look at their bloody papers and make instant judgement calls, we shout at the nurses to BRING MORE GAUZE!:

 White male, 18 years old. Okay: we gotta fix this organization or he'll bleed out on the table.  And we've got a gaping hole in the logic here caused by a single gun shot wound to the body paragraphs. Let's sew up the conclusion now or else it'll infect the rest of the essay from the bottom up. Get some transitions in here, stat! We can deal with the surface abrasions caused by faulty grammar when he's out of the woods.

But I've got this one student. If we extend the Emergency Room metaphor...he is DOA. He seems completely lost in college. Even in the first weeks, he didn't seem to grasp the concepts, or even the fact that his actions have consequences. He didn't turn things in, and what he did submit was absolutely unacceptable compared to his peers' work and the expectations for the Composition Program. When I talked to him personally, he always offered really off-the-wall excuses. But he seemed to be genuinely struggling, so I made a conscious effort to talk to him, to offer extensions, to give encouragement.

At UC, like many other colleges, undergraduate students have to pass English 1001 to graduate. If they earn below a C-, we give them an "NP," or "Not Proficient," and they have to take it again until they pass. And unfortunately, there's a point at which you  just can't recover from the poor work you've done. There's no way to get that C-. This student massively failed the first major paper, despite the suggestions I gave on the first draft. When I discussed it with the head of the Comp Program, she agreed with me--he can't recover. He should drop my course and register for the class below it, English 1000, in the spring. So then I was faced with a dilemma. How do I tell this student that he's failed already? It wasn't even October yet! Do you just say, YO, DROP MY CLASS? Maybe give him one of these?

NP for effort!

That week, I had planned to schedule individual meetings with my students. I knew it would be maybe my only opportunity to talk frankly with this student, to help him see the severity of the situation.

The conference day arrived, a Wednesday. As I walked to campus, I was still pondering how I should break the news gently to this student. This poor, fragile guy. And finally it came to me: an apt metaphor for what I'm doing is like when a doctor breaks bad news to a patient. I thought about my dad. He was fantastic with his patients--everyone always says he was an amazing listener. He really listened to their concerns, to how they were feeling. He never tried to rush people out of the office. He was kind and patient and understanding. He always explained everything and answered any questions. He invested in them.

So I'm walking up the hill and repeating to myself, good bedside manner, good bedside manner. Be kind, be kind, be gentle. When, a few minutes later, the student approached my table at Starbucks, I reminded myself to channel Dr. Brown. It...it went as well as I could have hoped. He was upset to hear he was failing so badly, but seemed to understand me. I apologized for having to give him such bad news. But I tried to balance the bad news with encouragement and advice: even if you drop now, you will be more prepared for next time. You just have to take advantage of the resources on campus. You have some nice ideas in your papers, but your writing just isn't quite there yet. (Okay, that one was sort of a lie.)

Maybe I did a better job being nice than convincing the student of the hopelessness of his grade, because he didn't drop. He stayed. He even raised his hand and answered a question last Thursday! He turned in a couple more assignments, but not the draft of the 8-page research paper. With anyone else, this would turn me into Red-Alert-Oh-Boy-You're-Screwed professor, but with this guy...it doesn't exactly matter. The last day to drop has passed, so he's officially getting an NP...no matter what.

I guess my job should be some combination of the kindly, helpful family practice doctor--who has the time and heart to explain things, to listen as they stumble towards a vaguely workable research topic--and an ER doctor, who's just trying to keep the patient alive, at all costs.

I don't know. Every time I'm harsh, I feel bad; every time I let something slide, I regret it. I'm still trying to work out the right mix of nice and tough. Ultimately, though, I'm just really hoping that this guy doesn't show up on my roster next semester! I'm not as good a person as my Dad was.

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.

Heart Break

I think it's fair to say that I've revealed a lot of myself in writing this blog. For me, it's cathartic. Writing helps me to know myself and to find meaning in what's happened. On the day that I decide to stop writing this, whenever that might be, I want to be able to look back and see honesty. I want to see my journey laid out behind me. I want my collected words to express something meaningful as a whole.

That being said, I feel like it's time for some real transparency. Despite my honesty, I often feel like I have to censor my more difficult thoughts: the unfair, the contradictory. It's hard. I don't want to offend or upset or worry my non-grieving friends, those who don't know what it's like to lose a parent. The feelings of bitterness, frustration, and anger that I struggled with for many months aren't easy for me to express, much less for other people to understand. So I've tried to spare people's sensibilities for the most part.

But right now, I feel like I want to try to talk about the one thing that breaks my heart the most.  

It's weddings. Well, actually, it's the Father of the Bride. The toast, the first dance, the image of some proud, watery-eyed Dad leading his little girl down the aisle. It's not one of those, aw-nostalgic-sad moment. It's not just a "Oh, I would have loved if Dad could be there at my future wedding, just like this, but it's okay."

No. At every wedding I've been to since, it's a dagger to the heart. It is BRUTAL. I try to cover it up, try not to show how much I need to go weep uncontrollably in the corner of the room. I mean, it's supposed to be a happy day. But hearing a father speak about his daughter, his voice breaking with emotion--it destroys me. For a moment, I go back to the pain immediately following Dad's death. I'm listening to someone else's Dad talk about how much he loves his little girl, and my Dad's deaddeaddead all over again.

Keep a gentle smile. One or two tears are acceptable; it's supposed to be a moving moment. No bitter twist of the mouth, no ironic self-pitying smiles. 

I hope that someday I can make it through an entire wedding reception without that burning, bitter feeling in the back of your throat when you desperately need to cry, aloud, right now. Your body aches to give physical evidence of your heart being ripped in two--but you can't. It's a damn wedding. It's the damn happiest day of my damn lucky friends' lives. And I genuinely do feel happy for them. But in the midst of all that good feeling, my grief swoops in, piercing me. Like a sudden gust of cold wind that only I can feel. The DJ is playing "Shout!" and everyone is dancing and I'm suddenly adrift in regrets and held-back tears and anger at my stupid Dad for dying and leaving us. 

I know my feelings will change--it's still a recent loss. Maybe someday I will be able to feel almost entirely nothing but happiness at my friends' weddings. I'll watch my friend waltz around the dance floor with her dad, giggling at his missteps or his dorky moves, and I won't feel that ache in my gut. But for now, it hurts like hell.

It's not just that I know Dad will never be at my wedding. (if there is a wedding...) I have never been one of those girls to eagerly plan and anticipate the color of her bridesmaids dresses and flowers. I can't stand looking at wedding magazines. But I always looked forward to hearing what my Dad would say during his toast. I was counting on that definite message of approval, of love, to send me off into my future. I imagined that he would cry and I would feel so loved, so precious. Like at my sister's wedding. I couldn't wait for it to be my turn, for all my parents' love to be focused on just me, for one day at least.

I don't resent my sister for having Dad at her wedding, I rejoice with her. It was a special day. And I don't actually resent my friends whose Dads are alive. But I sometimes feel terribly, terribly robbed.

Robbed of those few precious words of love, given at the right moment.

I guess the worst of the pain is tied to the fact that I didn't get to say goodbye properly. By the time Dad (or we) knew that he was going to die, he was unconscious and unresponsive. There was no time for final words. I know Dad loved us all deeply. I know this.

But I find myself aching for a memory I don't have. Sometimes I used to think that it's the only one I would have needed: hearing a final confirmation of his love, in his words, before he died. Those words would have stayed with me forever. They would have been a balm on the gaping wound of my grief. They would have been my mantra during the rough days. Instead, I had to create my own mantra of self-affirmation. During the months immediately after Dad's death, I would occasionally have really terrible days at work. The people would be horrible, I'd be bored and depressed and lonely. So, over and over and over, I'd repeat in my head the words: You are beautiful, you are strong, you are competent and well-loved. I'm not sure I ever really convinced myself.

But really it's not just Dad's absence from a potential future event that breaks my heart. It's not just the loss of those words. It's bearing witness to the love a father can have for his daughter. It reminds me that I'm halfway an adult-orphan. It reminds me how much I have lost. It reminds me of all of the unsaid words, all of the missed opportunities. It reminds me that I am still such a young girl, and I should not have lost my dad. I'm too young. 

"During this time I wanted my mother to say to me that I had been the best daughter in the world. I did not want to want this, but I did, inexplicably, as if I had a great fever that could be cooled only by those words."
--Cheryl Strayed, Wild

Father's Day, and a Story

Well, it's Father's Day.

I'm not sure what to say. I'm not even sure how I feel. I wanted to say something big, something meaningful. Some grand thank you, love you, miss you to my dad. But the words weren't coming. Somehow, even after all of the gushing I have done on this blog...today, I want to keep him to myself.

I want to keep my grief, my memories, and my love quiet and safe--held and cherished within. Does that even make sense? I guess I mean that from now on, Father's Day is a private thing. It's just between me and my family and Dad. Since I can't thank him in person or tag him in a Facebook post, it's only and it's all in my heart. I don't need to buy a card or a random gift--all the giving and receiving is done now. What's left is the pure stuff: the truth of our bond, the echo of Dad's deep love, the reality of the sacrifices he made for us. One year or ten years won't change those things.

I want to tell you a story that's only slightly about my dad.

A couple of years ago, I spent a semester studying abroad at Oxford University in England. During our spring break, I went with a group of people on a trip to northern Wales. We rented a house in Llanberis, and from there we drove to places like Caenarfon, Conwy, and Harlech to explore these fantastic medieval castles built by King Edward I. It was awesome. I spent most of my time at Oxford buried under massive piles of books and my tutors' expectations--but at least I can say that I saw some legit castles. We were staying right on the edge of Snowdonia National Park, very close to Snowdon itself, which is apparently the highest mountain in Wales. (Thanks, Wikipedia.) Anyways, when not visiting 13th century castles, we hiked in the gorgeous, rugged landscape around us.

One day, we went on a long hike up in the mountains. We were warned that it would be a strenuous hike, and that there would probably be snow as we got higher up into the mountains. It won't be that bad, I thought. I mean obviously I am not fit or strong at all, but I do like hiking. It'll be fine.

And it really was fine. The mountains were impressive and the views were expansive and I had a great time. We took a break next to a clear lake that was just beginning to thaw for the spring. I ate lunch while looking out at the valley below, where I could see tiny, tiny wind towers standing far, far away.

It would have continued to be fine, except for the unexpected depth and iciness of the snow. The trail finally disappeared beneath a layer of snow when we got to the vertical climbing section. I stood in foot holes kicked into the snow with nothing between my back and the rocks below but hundreds of feet of empty air. I'm not brave at all, it turns out. I hated that part. Hated it. I absolutely do not trust my own strength to hold me onto the mountain. I only made it because someone climbed directly behind me and told me not to cry anymore because it was going to be okay.

At a certain point, our group leader decided the ice was making the route too dangerous to continue up the mountain. And we couldn't go down the way we came. So it was decided that we would slide down the snowy face of the mountain, on our butts, to get to the level ground some hundreds of feet below. I guess it was a good enough plan. At that point, I was so freaked out by the traumatizing climb that I didn't care how we got down as long as we went down. Sitting on snow sounded better than clinging to rocks.

So it's fine, it's okay, we're making it. It's slow going, it's steep. But it's alright. We were going down in groups of three, and my group was first. One moment we were making our way down carefully, and one second later all three of us were sliding uncontrollably down this mountain. I fell first. Or maybe, I fell and they half-slid down after me. I don't know.

So there I was, tumbling uncontrollably down the steep side of this random mountain in Wales. The snow was incredibly slick and I couldn't grab onto anything--there wasn't anything to grab. Afterward I was told that the people watching above were sure I'd hit my head because I rolled over some of the rocks that jutted out from the snow. I don't know. I was turning over and over and I had enough time to think, Wow, this is not good. I might die here. I knew there was nothing to stop me from falling the rest of the way to the bottom of the mountain.

But here's the best part of the story: I'm fallingfallingfalling and I suddenly heard our group leader call out, "I'VE GOT YOU!" and he proceeded to tackle me. He landed directly on top of me and miraculously we stop sliding. I didn't even mind being squished. ALIVE OMG I'M ALIVE ALIVE. We untangled and Simon lifted me bodily and placed me on the hill. And with nothing else to do, I put my hat back on, readjusted my backpack and followed them down the mountain. A couple of hours later, the three of us safely arrived at mostly horizontal ground that was mostly not covered in snow. Glory hallelujah.

(Of course, my tumble had saved us a bunch of time and we had to wait another hour or so for the rest of our group to make it down. We huddled for warmth in the lee of a boulder because I suddenly realized I was soaking wet and my muscles were cramping and I was injured. The fall, or possibly the rescue, had pushed my jacket up so that I had these horrible scrapes and bruises around my midsection from the ice and the rocks. Couldn't comfortably wear pants for weeks.)

But mostly I was glad I survived this crazy, legitimately life-threatening situation. Many people might not have been so terrified--or in as much danger as I was--because they are strong or experienced or unafraid. But I didn't have any control over the fall. I didn't make myself slide, but I also didn't stop myself. I was saved.

A few days after the Mountain Madness, we arrived back home in Oxford. I called my parents to tell them about my wonderful trip and also to tell them about the few hours of sorta-terribly-scary-hiking-but-I'm-totally-fine. Suddenly my dad interrupted my story.

"Wait, was this on Tuesday? In the afternoon?" he asked.

"Actually, yeah. How did you know?" I'd said "the other day," not Tuesday. I was sure of it.

Then my dad told me that Tuesday morning, he'd been at the office and was suddenly overcome with a need to pray for me. Desperately. And he had, briefly, not knowing what to pray for. He prayed for my safety. I thought quickly. Accounting for the time difference, my dad had felt compelled to pray for me at the same time that I was on the mountain, maybe even the exact moment when I fell.

I'm a rather skeptical person. I don't often see "God moments" or "Heavenly coincidences" in my life--I tend to think first of, well, actual coincidence or Western medicine or chance. But when Dad told me he'd prayed specifically for me on that Tuesday morning, without knowing why or even that I would be hiking that day, I couldn't help but believe.

Simon saved me. But how, with what power, with what timing--I like to think my Dad's prayers, his love and his positive thoughts reached across the ocean that day and helped to save me on the mountain.

I was thinking about this story the other day. I thought about my fall and my dad's inexplicable sense that I was in danger and his prayers for me. I laid in bed and wondered....Who will pray for me the next time I'm falling from a mountain? I mean this metaphorically, of course. I'm trying to avoid dangerous hiking situations in the future. But who will worry for me like that? Who will protect me now that he's gone?

Then I thought of a lovely quote from Harry Potter. When Harry doesn't understand how his mother's sacrifice can still protect him from Voldemort, Dumbledore says, "To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever."

I don't have an answer to my question. There isn't anyone yet who can step into that void, though I'm hopeful. For now I'm just clinging to the rocks as best I can.

But maybe the air behind me isn't quite as empty as I'd thought. Happy Father's Day, Dad.

Love you.

Family Vacations

It's funny.

I've spent the past week in a city I've never been to, in a state I haven't visited for at least eight years. Though I do enjoy the white sand beaches, the sunsets, the seafood, the Key Lime pie, I don't really care about Southwest Florida. I don't particularly have any special memories from our past vacations there.

Mystic Seaport, Connecticut

So I found it pretty strange when I teared up as we were driving away from the airport last week. I sat in the backseat, watching the sun-streaked sky as the palm trees flew past, thinking about the differences between Florida and the north. The tropical plants, the flowers, the fruit trees, the palms. The low buildings, painted mostly in shades of tan except for the occasional pop of color: teal, lemon, purple, brick red, aqua. Flat, straight roads that dead-end at the beach. Sand everywhere. I looked up at the sky, excited to be starting another family vacation, and I was suddenly struck with a sense of Dad's presence, there with us. Despite the fact that I have no memories of him in that place.

I know, it's cliche: "I felt him there, watching over me." I always thought this was a cliche because I've never felt it, not once, since he died. Dad is dead and Dad is gone. That's always how I've felt. He's not forgotten, but he's gone. I thought that people were making it up, that they half-convinced themselves they "felt" their dead loved one, when really they were just sad or nostalgic or wistful.

Chimney Rock, North Carolina

But I really did get the strongest sense, just for a moment, that Dad was with us, too. That he was setting out with us on a brand new family vacation--just like he always had. I could so easily imagine him in the driver's seat, wearing his clip-on sunglasses and a sun hat. He and Jason would talk about making a tee time; Mom and I would point out the outlet mall--"We're going there!" Mom and Dad would harmlessly bicker about what lane to be in, how to operate the rental car. Us kids would look at each other and roll our eyes; silent, annoyed. Then someone would mention the story about the giant meatball, or how excited they are to go sailing, and we'd all laugh it off. Vacation!

At first I wondered why I felt him so strongly in a strange place, but then I understood. I have many memories of Dad at home, good memories. But the best memories, I've realized, are tied to the family vacations we took over the years. Those trips--to Florida or Tennessee or California or wherever--were the times when our family was closest and when Dad was only ours.

On vacation, he wasn't Dr. Brown. He didn't have to answer to all of his other responsibilities. No phone calls or trips to the emergency room or office hours or dictation to do. On vacation, he was just Dad--goofy and funny and kind and enthusiastic. He was the guy who dragged us to museums and historical forts and retired battleships. He was the guy who threatened to just turn the van around and go home if we didn't stop complaining!

San Diego, California

On vacation, Dad was relaxed, he got enough sleep, he ate well. He was goofy. He wore fannypacks (in the 90s) and loud golf shirts (always). He wore high socks. He made us try interesting new restaurants wherever we were. He laughed so much and told corny jokes. He snored less. He slathered on sunscreen and wore dorky wide-brim hats. He read every single piece of information at museums. He braved active volcanoes and crash-landed planes and waterfalls...on putt-putt courses across the country. (Putt-putt is a Brown Family Vacation tradition. It's right up there with Breyer's ice cream and fighting when we get too hungry.)

Vacation is the place--or the state of being--where I feel closest to my memories of Dad. The memories of Dad and the rest of my family on vacation are just so much more intense--purified of everyday concerns and work and deadlines and homework. With all that removed, we were just family. Enjoying the sights around the country, experiencing new things, getting on each other's nerves, laughing together. And Dad was--and still is--an integral part of that.

Bar Harbor, Maine

On this trip, I felt closer and further from Dad than ever. All week I was reminded of great vacation memories of my dad. We told Kelly, Chris' girlfriend, the classic story of Dad and the Soapy Pancakes. I thought of the random organ concert that he took us to at Balboa Park in San Diego. I laughed thinking of that time we tried to teach Dad how to play Mao, and he was so confused that he refused to speak, even when we told him he could. On Thursday, I walked into this tourist shop and found a whole line of Hawaiian/tropical golf shirts that my Dad would totally have worn. It felt like walking into his closet.

But this time, he's not here. There are things I know he would have loved, like our catamaran cruise, the seafood restaurant, the sunset on the beach. There are things he wouldn't have chosen--mainly the alcohol and the severe sunburn. (Sorry, Dad!) He would have loved to have been at Teddy Collins' wedding. It's sad that he wasn't there, but it's also okay. I thought at first that it wouldn't feel like a proper family vacation without him, but I was wrong.

I was wrong because it was an absolutely wonderful week. I was wrong because life always moves forward. I was wrong because I still have a wonderful family that I love being around. We can still laugh and play and talk and vacation. Even without Dad. It's not the same, but it's enough.

More Than I Knew

When I was little, my absolute favorite musical group was Out of Eden. Don't remember them? They were a Christian R&B or "urban gospel" group, made up of three sisters, who were mostly active during the nineties. Basically, they were the Christian version of Destiny's Child. I loved them.

I had the cassette tape of their 1996 album, "More Than You Know." For years I listened to it obsessively. The words and melodies became so ingrained that I could sing the entire album to myself, without the music. I loved it more than my Point of Grace cassette tape, more than my Avalon cassette tape, more than my Wizard of Oz soundtrack! Obviously, I really hadn't discovered secular music at this point. Or CDs. But that's besides the point.

I have no idea what happened to my collection of cassette tapes--maybe I threw them away? I'm not even sure when I last owned something with a tape deck in it. And my musical tastes have obviously evolved since 1996. Back then I had about ten cassette tapes, now I have 12 days worth of music on my iPod. Now I prefer music of the indie alt-folk variety--basically, give me a guy sitting on a bar stool with an acoustic guitar (banjo is optional) and I'm happy. If he's British, even better.

But I discovered earlier tonight that I can still sing every single word of "More Than You Know." Every single word, every ad lib, and yes, every rap break! Every so often, I like to listen to the bands I loved when I was younger, the nineties rock bands and boy bands and pop groups. I like to jam to Goo Goo Dolls and sing my heart out with Mariah Carey and laugh as I listen to *N SYNC or Backstreet Boys. (Only legit fans remember the asterisk!)  But only certain songs really, viscerally throw me back to my childhood.

It was so much simpler back then. It's not that I miss childhood--I don't! I remember when growing up, I'd have friends who wished they could be five again, so that they wouldn't have to deal with homework or algebra or boy troubles. I was never like that: I always wanted to be older. I couldn't learn fast enough, I couldn't grow up fast enough. I felt frustrated by my ignorance.

Listening to Out of Eden makes me think of: that garish pink tape player I had. I think of my old friend Leah Dykstra. I think of laying on the carpet, drawing or reading Sweet Valley High books. It reminds me of Trinity Christian School: the playground, art class, Mrs. Penn. It reminds me of Sunday school and Children's church. I think of playing Barbies--my favorites were Baywatch Mitch (he came with a Sea-Doo and a life preserver), and a brown-haired Barbie I named Caroline. Yep, my favorite guy Barbie was based on David Hasslehoff. How nineties! I think of American Girl magazine, I think of horse camp at Camp Campbell Gard. I think of sleepovers. I think of how simply, purely, unthinkingly I loved Jesus then. I think about how I wanted to be a veterinarian, or an artist, or a judge.

I feel like I'm obsessed with remembering my childhood lately. Not just the events, the crushes, the school field trips, but the feeling, the sense I had of myself. The sense I had of my place in the world, and of my family. What did I think about my Dad? What did I think about my future? Did I feel secure and hopeful? I try to scrape together the memories, but most of the time they're only a whisper, a scattering of thoughts buried beneath the buzz and clamor of my current life. Texts and emails, phone calls and meetings, responsibilities and bills all shout for my attention. Anxiety and grief and desire and boredom chase one another around my head and my heart. I look at the blue sky, but I don't even see it through my mental checklist: Get to work. Do laundry later. Turn left.

I can't stop trying to reconcile Me, now, with Me, then. Or even with Me, at 15. So much has changed. A while ago, I dug out my high school diary and found an entry I'd written the day before I started my first real job. I was so excited to receive my first "real" paycheck! I wrote about how I had just finished driver's ed and I was excited but nervous about the responsibility of driving. I wrote about how much older I felt. I wrote about how I was totally not going to obsess about boys, like, ever again.

Today, I think about how different I am from that 15 year old girl: I'm wiser, I'm older. I know what it is to work, I know sacrifice and sleep deprivation and dedication. I know heartbreak. I understand how ambiguous life can be. I've traveled the bumpy, dirt roads of East Africa, sat through the sudden downpours and smelled the flowers (as well as the filth) in Nairobi. I've walked the dusty streets of West Africa, felt the tug of the Atlantic ocean swirling about my legs. I've seen the beauty and brokenness of the children of the slums. I've sat in English pubs and dashed down cobblestone streets and explored centuries-old Welsh castles. I've fallen into books and reveled in others' words and fought to find my own. I've been drunk and sick and made a fool out of myself, more than once. I've filled out a million applications, for jobs and programs and schools. I've gotten rejections. I had a paper published. I discovered what I actually think about social and political issues. I've voted. I watched my dad die.

I think. I think I'm happy to be where I am. Regardless of the tears that brought me here. Listening to old favorites like Out of Eden reminds me that I really am the same girl. She isn't lost, she isn't forgotten. She isn't even far away: I still have her drive, her joy, her love of learning and a good '90s urban gospel song.

Jessie at 10, listening to cassette tapes and dreaming of the future. Jess at 15, learning to drive. Jessica at 23, learning...I'm not sure what, yet.

Every once in a while, since Dad passed, I've thought to myself, I wouldn't want my life to have happened any differently. And most of the time, it's true.