Letting Go...

No run yet, letting it cool down... we'll see if it happens. I am happy with the week so far, but hitting 20 would be nice. Today the focus shifts a bit back to my grieving process. It is a topic that hasn't popped up here for awhile... and I do admit that is partly due to neglecting the process... However, I am also happy to say it is partly because I am far enough along the process to not have it consume all my attention. I am making this weekend about letting go. It is not an easy weekend. Dad passed away on Father's Day and so it makes it sort of a double whammy. I am certainly in a much different place than I was when it happened, and also from a year ago... it is hard to believe 2 years have passed. I am looking at this next year as a time to embrace and put into practice the things that I have worked for over the past year (and mostly over the past 6 months or so). What I am about to write is my story of my day two years ago. It is something that I don't want to carry around anymore as a burden. It will always be a part of me... but right now it is something that weighs me down because I want a "pay back" for it... it is one of those horrible experiences that you go through in life and think that no one else could understand, and you feel like the world owes you something for putting you through it. My Dad was a gift to both me and all who met him. For that I am thankful... by letting this story out for the world to read, I am connecting to both the suffering and joy that is our existence as humans. Here is my attempt to tap into that, and let go of some of my own pain...

Two years ago today I said goodbye to my Dad before going to work, just as I had the whole week prior... these were not careless words tossed out, banking on the thoughtless faith that I would see him again soon. No, these goodbyes were small rituals of letting go. Letting go of the idea that the body that lie there (practically unconscious) was still my Dad, and that he would still have his breath when I returned. In retrospect, I am not sure why I was still going to work during those last days... I suppose that the process had been so drawn out that it just made sense, that is what he would have done. Knowing I could not do anything to change the outcome of what was going to happen... I would go pass the time with the distraction that was my job. Part of me wishes I would have just stayed there and sat with him. However, this day, like those earlier in the week I would not get the half expected phone call at work (although each time it rang I winced), and when I returned home I would get the chance to simply sit with him. It was horrible. He was in a great deal of pain, and seemed less and less the form that I knew as my Dad. The feeling of extreme helplessness was drowning everyone in the house... although we all played it cool, if nothing else to support each other (the only form of "something helpful" we could do). My final hours with him felt every bit as long as the 20 some years that his death was inevitable. The sound of his labored breathing made me wish for the most deafening silence, the kind that is maddening when you are actually surrounded by it. However, as the hours went by that was still my wish... a silent freedom for everyone, most of all him. Each agonizing cough, or struggle that he made caused everyone in the room to hold their own breath. Watching the human body fail connects you deeply to your own fragility. It changes you. It is as if you were told a secret that you are not supposed to share at any cost, but you have the eerie feeling that everyone else knows... each person walking along pretending they haven't been told. I sat there, holding his hand... feeling what little life he still had trying to connect to me and take care of me... knowing that this experience was causing me (and other loved ones) pain was probably what was hardest for him. I tried to pour all the love that I had into that touch. How do you truly convey how much someone means to you, or how much you love them? After a number of hours, I could hardly stand it... I just wanted him to let go, move on to what ever was in front of him. I put my hand on his chest and did my best to touch his heart, "go be free..." I don't know how many times I said it, and then finally it happened. His body quit. It couldn't fight anymore... his breath became calm for a few moments... and he was gone. My own breath struggles even as I write this... However, there was a sense of freedom. A letting go. It was late midnight... Father's Day. I wasn't sure what that meant to me anymore. My brother and I held on to each other for a bit, and the others who were in the house. He lay there still, I didn't fully comprehend until we turned on the light... that the body in front of me was most definitely no longer my Dad. There are several images that will never leave me, and that is certainly one of them. Next was all the formalities... the things you have to do when someone dies. These is a numbness that goes with all of this... it is simply going through the motions of something, like getting your car fixed or ordering take out. Very little of it seems to fit the scope of what just happened. After sometime had passed I went out to the front steps of the house. It was a pleasant night, with a clear sky... clear enough to view the stars. I decided that I would go to the stars to find my Dad from then on. It made sense. The stars are there whether we can see them or not... I can't exactly comprehend them, but they somehow make sense... and never fail to amaze me. I have not searched out those stars very often over the passed two years. I think that I am ready to start doing that a little more often. I now recognize the value of that ritual, and the strength I can pull from my experience. That is part of sharing it. Allowing myself to honor the experience as something that has shaped my life. Seeing that life doesn't "owe" me anything... but that it is my responsibility to use what I have learned along the way to strengthen and appreciate the relationships that I have. If you have read this, then I thank you for sharing in this process, and I am blessed by that connection... whether I know you well, or you are a stranger that stumbled upon this and we are now connected by our humanity. Give thanks tomorrow for those relationships you cherish (fathers or otherwise), we are fragile, but there is a strength that lies underneath the surface that is unlimited... be freed by that strength.