This morning I opened a neglected notebook and found a weekend to-do list I’d written on September 13: the Friday before my Dad died. None of the list items were checked off: apparently I stuck the notebook with its list into my backpack and promptly forgot about it. Now it exists as a curious artifact of the days before grief happened. Who was I when I wrote it, and who is it who has lived my life in my stead since then?
My Dad died on Monday night, September 16; I received word early the next morning. The intervening days have passed in a blur–every Monday, I remind myself where I am in the seven-week cycle of traditional Buddhist mourning–but apart from those weekly signposts, the past few weeks feel timeless and uprooted. Somehow, I am continuing to teach my classes, and somehow, I manage to move through my morning, midday, and evening tasks: the dishes done, the papers (mostly) graded and returned, the dog walked, the lectures somehow planned and delivered. But I have little conscious recollection of how it’s all happening or who it is exactly who is inhabiting my body while my head and heart feel muddled and muffled, as if my soul were swaddled in fluffed cotton.
Seeing that long-forgotten to-do list crystallized this experience–here is a list I don’t remember writing with tasks I somehow did but have no memory of. Today, the tasks I was thinking about the Friday before my Dad died have no relevance: I can’t remember why it was I cared.
The week my Dad died, I taught my classes in a daze, guided through my daily routine by the muscle memory of autopilot. The weekend after my Dad died, I flew to Ohio to be with my Mom and sisters, missing a grand total of two days of classes: one at Babson, one at Framingham State. The saddest day since my Dad died was the day after I’d returned from Ohio and realized I’d have to go back to teaching the next day as if nothing ever happened: the cruel reality of life going on.
This past week I haven’t felt grief-stricken as much as tired: my current mood is exhaustion with a soft center of sadness. I’m sad my Dad suffered, sad he’s gone, and sad I wasn’t there in his final days. I’m sad, too, that I wasn’t there for my Dad for years, ever since leaving for college: my life in six words can be summarized in the sorry sentence, “Left for college, never came home.”
My Dad’s life, on the other hand, could be summarized “Worked hard, and now he’s gone.” I’m not sure whether I believe in heaven and the resurrection of the body; I’m not sure whether my Dad is in a better place, only that he is (finally) free of suffering. In the meantime, I struggle with the way life goes on as if everything were normal, my Dad’s existence crossed off the page like another item on God’s to-list.
I wrote this entry on Thursday, October 3, two and a half weeks after my Dad died, and I’m only now getting around to posting it.
Oct 21, 2019 at 12:12 am
And yet, I’d say your dad hasn’t been crossed off any cosmic list. Trite as it sounds, he lives on in you and other loved ones, the ripples of his existence forever propagating outward to a grand but unknown extent. There’s some sense in which your dad continues on, I’d say, even if only as a guide for your future thoughts, words, and deeds. Some traditions say that, when we die, we each become a star in the firmament. Maybe it’s something like that. You can’t do any of the terrestrial things you used to be able to do with your dad, such as hug him, kiss him, or talk directly with him. But you can still live a life that is worthy of his hard work such that “Worked hard, and now he’s gone” is more than a vain echo.
I’m almost done with my current walk across South Korea, and I’ve noticed that my path is often lined with cosmos flowers, which were one of my mom’s favorite plants. I’ve taken to mentally saying “Hi, Mom” whenever I see clumps or fields of these flowers.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oct 21, 2019 at 8:29 am
Yes, you’re right. My Dad is still with me, just as your Mom is still with you.
LikeLike
Oct 22, 2019 at 11:22 am
Thank you for sharing. It’s such a vast space to be in, where you are now in grieving. I honor you and your journey.
LikeLike
Oct 23, 2019 at 9:18 am
Grief is physically heavy to carry around, as a reminder that it is real and natural. Take good care of yourself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Oct 23, 2019 at 9:22 pm
Oh, Lorianne, there is so much here that resonates with me. (I’m curious about the Buddhist teachings about seven weeks of mourning; someday I’d like to learn about that, and see where it is and isn’t parallel to my own tradition’s teachings about seven days and four weeks and eleven months of mourning; but today is not that day.) I hear you, and I get it, and I send love.
LikeLike
Nov 17, 2019 at 6:27 pm
Speak to him often be gentle with yourself.
Allow yourself time
Sending love
LikeLike