On this day each year, I think of my father. He was a wonderful father, and although we had too few years, he packed a lot of living into the time we had together. My memories of him are both big and small, but it is small things I am remembering today, the 43rd anniversary of the day he died.
He got sick a few nights before, and spent some time in the hospital while my mother held vigil at his bedside. I was staying with my cousin, who tried, as best she could with two small children of her own to care for, to anchor my topsy turvy world in the midst of the storm. (I am not sure I have ever said thank you appropriately to her, but I hope she knows how much I appreciate everything she did to try to make it okay when it was all so very wrong. She was, and is, the most special person, and I am grateful beyond measure.)
It is interesting how the small things stick in your memory in the midst of life's greatest trials. Perhaps it is because you simply cannot wrap your mind around the big stuff, so you have to cling to what you can manage. I don't know. But when I think back to that week of hell on earth, my memories are probably not what you would imagine.
In the week that my dad was sick, I went to school, I came back to my cousin's, I did my homework, and generally avoided the major earthquake that had just torn my entire life asunder. What I remember most is her baby throwing up blueberry cobbler baby food all over my white outfit. I never think of him (or see blueberry cobbler baby food) without smiling because I am reminded of that moment. A little normalcy in the midst of chaos made it bearable.
I remember the ring of the telephone that morning, and the sound of my cousin's small intake of breath. I knew, without her telling me, what the news was. I am sorry that she had to be the one to take on that burden, because it was too much for a 25 year old to tell her 12 year old cousin that her father was gone.
She did it well, I am sure, and she made it just barely tolerable, because I survived until my mother arrived. But I don't remember her words or what she did, other than I know she hugged me tight and cried with me.
Instead, I remember the sun shining through the window, and thinking that it was strange that the sun could still shine when my daddy wasn't here to see it any more. I remember the grain in the table top under the shiny finish. I remember seeing the bus come and go, my cousin waving them away.
I don't remember my mother coming to pick me up, nor driving home to a house that was no longer the same. I vaguely remember sitting in the living room staring at a blank television, and wondering how you live life without your dad to lead the way. Big thoughts when you are 12. Or 55, to be honest.
The day went in slow motion, but I remember little of it. I know the house filled with relatives, and people brought food and condolences. But the only thing I clearly remember from that dark and difficult day was that my beloved uncle, so much like my mother, knew exactly what to do when he walked through the door. He hugged me tight and told me he loved me. He didn't say anything else. He didn't need to, because he said the single thing that helped. Small moment, in the course of a lifetime, but so very important I remember it like it was today.
The day of the funeral was cold and bitter. I remember very little of the formalities, although I did learn a few things not to say to someone in deep grief that day. (I will save that discussion for another day, but seriously, think before you talk to a child who has just lost their beloved parent. Sometimes it really is better just not to say anything at all.)
What I remember most is hiding in a corner of the parish hall watching everyone socialize as if this was just any other pot luck, and contemplating the huge run in my nylon. I had borrowed from my cousin because I was unprepared and didn't have any, and I put my finger through them trying to get them just a little longer. They bothered me all day. I was really angry about the run in my nylon, and I felt guilty that I had wrecked my cousin's nylon's when she had been so good to me. (Sorry Sue. I owe you a pair of nylons, I think.) Why do I remember something so insignificant, I wonder, when my entire life was shattered by something so huge?
So often we look for that big moment, that grand gesture, just the right word, just the right action, which will make a difference to someone in need. The desire to "get it right" holds us back from the small thing we can do, because we feel it is inadequate, somehow not good enough.
But in the darkest of times, when life is at its hardest, it is not always the big stuff that stays with us. I find, at least for me, it is the small moments which define the experience, and which I carry forward with me. And for those who were willing to be vulnerable enough to share those moments with me, their presence is what I carry with me. I remember a hug, a pair of nylons, and my aunt crying in her kitchen because her baby brother was gone, and she couldn't believe it any more than I could.
Real life is lived in the small places that fill our everyday existence. It is in the people who fill our lives with love and care. It is the sun shining through the window. It is snagged nylons and bitter wind and quiet hugs and shared tears.
Happy heaven day, daddy. I miss you now and always.
