This week was the two-year anniversary of my father’s death. It’s complicated. Grief is hard. If you don’t know grief, you may not know that it is also well hidden at times. We bury it. It waits to pop back out when you least expect it. That’s a little of what this week has felt like. I am well acquainted with grief. I’ve known so much of it in my life. We’re old friends. Or frenemies. I’m not sure which. Grief gave me writing. Grief gave me music. Grief gave me my heart. I know it so well because I understand its presence and absence – as if it’s part of my own being. It has given me many gifts. It has taken far too much.
I’ve felt for some time that I need to write my story – as in my real story. My life is a wild one. I don’t know how I survived, to be honest. But I haven’t just survived. I’ve done far better than most with my story. I don’t mean that in the cash in my bank account, climbing the corporate ladder, owning a huge house, and fancy cars – kind of way. Nonetheless, I have thrived and I am proud of who I am. The odds were stacked against me from nearly the beginning. What a joy it is to know how far I’ve come. But, even still – feeling this joy, I’ve yet to decide when and how to tell that story. The only thing I know for sure is that I’m nearing that moment. Or perhaps I’ve started it here.
I’ve spent far too many years of my life not telling the story. I didn’t tell for a lot of reasons – first of which was my day job. I’m so tired of that. I’d rather lose everything than to not write these words and tell the story of how I got here. The grief has not found its end. But I know joy in spite of it. I know deep abiding joy. My favorite place to be physically, mentally, and spiritually is in a moment of absolute simplicity – doing something that is seemingly inconsequential. Maybe it’s cooking a big dinner with a glass of wine, with windows open, a breeze blowing through the house, and my favorite playlist on. Bliss. There is total joy there in those moments of nothingness that become everything. How I am capable of this kind of joy when I think about my life, I will never know.
I don’t know why. I don’t know why I was spared. But somehow I was. That’s not to say I’ve been free of the consequences of tremendous loss. I have not been free of the consequences. The grief over the death of my father is complicated. It’s complicated because of what was, what was not, and what will never be. It’s complicated because he was so loved and to speak of what was and what was not, is to take that from those who sincerely revered his leadership and impact on their lives.
My dad was one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. He was truly hilarious. I was taught ridiculous movie lines, 70s-80s music, movies in the theater the first weekend they come out, inappropriate sayings (inappropriate sayings for children – perhaps appropriate for sailors), and football. These are things I spend the most time thinking about when the grief feels like too much. I think about Shakey’s buffet, El Torito weekend brunches, and the moments I lived for on early (every other) Saturday mornings when he walked into the kitchen – making jokes before saying a single other word. Or saying something terribly horrifying like, “I gotta piss like a race horse.” How charming that must have been for my mom to hear from the mouths of her 8 yr old daughter or 6 yr old son, the first time.
My dad was deeply, deeply flawed. Aren’t we all flawed? Sure. But he was in a different category. In his case, it hurts my heart to know that he didn’t have peace until the day he slipped from this earth. It hurts my heart to know what he chose over that healing. It destroyed his life and his body. I know he knew how to find that peace and healing though. He chose something else entirely.
My dad waited for me. As I was flying across the country, his nurses were telling him I was on my way. His nurses told me this – it’s how I know. He waited to leave until I made it to his bedside. I am not exaggerating when I say that it was a horrible 48-hours. He was not conscious. And yes, you wonder if they can hear you. I’m convinced they can after seeing him there. My father passed away on his own, though I had decided he should no longer be on life support. This after consulting with my family – his siblings – after listening to the stark words from the doctor and his ICU nurse. She blessed me with the truth, drawing out the realities on a dry erase board in his room. “You understand?” she asked me in a Filipino accent. She told me in her way, “he can’t sustain this.” It was, quite frankly, a miracle he’d held out so long. He passed from this life after I arrived – after I told him I loved him, forgave him, and understood that he was ready.
He was ready. He was tired. It’s hard to live 70 years in so much turmoil and agony. When the nurses in the ICU explained the amount of drugs in his system and what his long term prognosis was, the longer he was ventilated at such a degree, combined with the consequences of years of abusing his body (and more importantly his mind) – his chances were not good, to say the least. When I think about what could have been, I’m sad for him as much as I am for me. I’m sad about what he could have accomplished and what he lost out on. I’m deeply heartbroken that he never knew the healing I know (and that healing grows all of the time). Most of all, I wish he’d never been so deeply wounded himself.
The greatest gift we give ourselves – the greatest gift we give our family and loved ones – is seeking wholeness, healing, and joy. I wish he’d known that kind of healing and joy.
I am so grateful it found me, in spite of what should have been.
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