Anniversary
Today marks a year since my father died.
Time has been up to its old mischief, and it feels both infinitely longer and far shorter since that saddest of days.
I've been anticipating this anniversary for quite a while, expecting it to deliver some kind of meaning or carry some kind of significance.
But today I woke up to a morning like any other. And though I had hoped for a visit from my dad, he was entirely absent from my dreams—as he has been, with one brief exception, all year.
A wise friend wrote to me the day after my dad's memorial service last year. Her own father had died shortly after we first met, and we had never really talked about it because we were barely acquaintances back then. I'm not even sure I offered my condolences at the time, which shames me to this day.
In her note to me, this friend described grief and mourning, in her experience, as having had "a very clear before and after. Like a cloak lifting off, and once it was off, it was off."
That poetic image stayed with me, and comforted me, over the past year.
And yet now that I look back, I see that my experience was very different. Not only do I think the cloak never lifted—I'm not sure I was under a cloak at all.
Perhaps because my dad's last year was so medically fraught, because he had virtually no independence, because his quality of life was so drastically circumscribed for so long, his death, while an incalculable loss, was also an overdue relief from his incalculable suffering.
And so maybe there was a cloak after all—one that lifted off of him, rather than me.
Time has been up to its old mischief, and it feels both infinitely longer and far shorter since that saddest of days.
I've been anticipating this anniversary for quite a while, expecting it to deliver some kind of meaning or carry some kind of significance.
But today I woke up to a morning like any other. And though I had hoped for a visit from my dad, he was entirely absent from my dreams—as he has been, with one brief exception, all year.
A wise friend wrote to me the day after my dad's memorial service last year. Her own father had died shortly after we first met, and we had never really talked about it because we were barely acquaintances back then. I'm not even sure I offered my condolences at the time, which shames me to this day.
In her note to me, this friend described grief and mourning, in her experience, as having had "a very clear before and after. Like a cloak lifting off, and once it was off, it was off."
That poetic image stayed with me, and comforted me, over the past year.
And yet now that I look back, I see that my experience was very different. Not only do I think the cloak never lifted—I'm not sure I was under a cloak at all.
Perhaps because my dad's last year was so medically fraught, because he had virtually no independence, because his quality of life was so drastically circumscribed for so long, his death, while an incalculable loss, was also an overdue relief from his incalculable suffering.
And so maybe there was a cloak after all—one that lifted off of him, rather than me.
posted by Jody Rosen Knower at 11:58 AM
1 Comments:
What you say is poetically accurate, Jody. My Dad, your great uncle, also had a protracted period of suffering before he succumbed to lung cancer back in 1984. While I miss him, I am happy that he is no longer suffering. What comforts me is the good memories that I have of times I spent with him. He was an extraordinary man who overcame physical disabilities to live a full life and provide our family with direction and all the comforts he could afford.
Cousin Janie
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