Finding Sanctuary from Grief

Yesterday was National Take Your Kids to Work Day.  Of course I took my son to work with me.  He was quite excited by the prospect.  Then we got off the elevator and he must have remembered his visit from last year when my dad was still alive.  Something in him just went quiet and sad.  Seeing your child go through the same emotion you go through every day when you go to work is unsettling to say the least.  I felt helpless because there was nothing I could do about it.

I regretted bringing him to work.  But it was too late to take him back home.  So I told him that what he was feeling is how I felt everyday.  He said, "Because you worked with your dad."  There were times when he forgot he was sad, like when they were looking down at the heliport off the FDR and seeing if any would blow up or crash.

Someone else was now occupies my dad's desk space.  There was a moment when he stood by a cabinet containing my dad's cases.  I didn't see my dad's name on the cabinet labels but my son did.  He stood on that spot, pointed to it and broke down in tears.  Cry for me kid, because it's just odd when a grown woman bursts into tears for no reason.  I did that earlier this week.  Got to work, tried to out run my emotions but they caught up to me in the elevator.  I barely got to my desk, drop my bag, before I had to run out of there, furiously rubbing my eyes, sniffling and hoping to God someone was going to think I had allergies.

I remember taking this picture towards
the end of summer on a Sunday after church

So I was dreading picking up my dad's car from the garage.  The battery died a few months ago and we never got around to taking it to the garage.  That seems to be the pattern for me when it comes to dealing with my dad's death.  It was odd not picking up my dad's car.  Odder still was getting behind the wheel and driving home.

I spent a lot of time in the passenger seat of my dad's car.  The sound of the automatic door lock when you put the car into gear is actually comforting.  It took me a few minutes to get used to driving the car.  I haven't driven it in a few months.  It's odd but something about being in that car just drags my mind back to the time I spent in it with my dad.  I remember my last two drives with my dad.  The first one was when I drove with him to the store after leaving Pho Mac and the second was when I drove him, in my car, to the airport.

The images meld in my mind and somehow, his presence is there, beside me, larger than life in my mind.  I miss him.  Life is continuing.  Missing him is very different from missing my mom.  Sometimes, I feel like the alien from the movie and the grief is a broken pod of goop from which I'm emerging.  Maybe this version of me will be better than their predecessors.

Synchronized Grief

Conversation between me and my seven year old....

Me:  Are we going to talk about that really bad thing I did?
CMC:  What bad thing?
Me:  You know when I got mad, really, really mad...
CMC:  Oh, that...
Me:  Did you forget or are you choosing to forget?
CMC:  (No answer)
Me:  (long pause and two right turns later)  I'm lost.
CMC:  How are you lost?
Me:  I'm just lost.  I can't seem to find my way.  I'm so sad and I've been sad for so long that it just makes me mad, which is kind of crazy because the reason I'm mad in the first place is because of sad and remembering I'm sad just makes me sad all over which just makes me mad....(pause)....which...is...just crazy.
CMC:  It's crazy.  (very quiet voice)  I feel sad too and it makes me mad and I kick my brother in the face.
Me:  Maybe you and I should do something since we're both sad and we've been sad for so long and it just makes us mad that we're so sad all the time.
CMC:  Like what?
Me:  Pull our hair and scream together?  Or maybe we can line up the pillows on the couch and punch them.  I don't think kicking your brother is a solution.
CMC:  No.  Maybe we can box on the Wii or punch the air.
Me:  No.  I think we need to hit something.  Oh, I know, maybe we can use daddy's boxing mitt and hit that!

At which point he got quite excited and his mind wander off in a totally different direction.  He's only seven.  I can't expect him to carry on a longer conversation than that.  He helped my grief explode.  It shouldn't have because I'm the adult.  But in talking to him about it, I think it helped him identify his own grief.  I hate the fact that I can't make it better for him any more than I can for me.

A few hours later....after sharing our idea with his father....

CMC:  Maybe we can spend time together.  Maybe that can help us not be sad.

Hot damn!  To think I gave birth to him.  He's wiser beyond his years.  Maybe it's not a bad idea.  How does he know me so well?  How the hell do we go head to head?  He's me and I'm him.  Life is odd and God really does have a sense of humor.  He built the perfect version of me that I always wished I could be.  I'm not sure how this parenting thing is supposed to work because all I learned from my parents is that parents are supposed to tell their kids how it works.  It has worked to an extent but I think this kid is unique.  He taught me more, impacted my life in ways I never imagined and for the better in his seven years on this earth than anyone I have ever known.  Impressive that he has done that while simultaneously pissing me off as he gets older.

Then he does things that completely blows my mind.  He took his brother's glass because he wanted the last of the ginger ale.  I told him he shouldn't take it but ask.  Which he reluctantly did.  His brother, adoring him completely, just gave him the glass.  Seeing my attempt to impart a lesson about sharing fall completely flat, I decided to tell him that he should save the last for the one he loves.

Without missing a beat he replies, "Jesus?  I love Jesus."  Now it makes sense why he understands me.  I have been blessed to have a son who shares something very important with me, the deep abiding love I have to Jesus.

I don't want to be mad.  I am tired of being sad.  There is life all around and I want to live it.  I'm done accepting this sadness.  I had the love of my parents my whole life.  They are gone.  It's time to strengthen the bonds of other loves and move on.  All it take is faith the size of a mustard seed.  My son's mustard seed sized faith has tossed me a lifeline, I just have to now grab a hold of him and pull us both to the shore.  

Blessings Hidden in the Tears

When we make friends we look for things we have in common.  Its good to have things in common.  It gives us something to connect with in one another.  But I don't think I want to have this in common, a dead parent or both parents dead.  I wonder sometimes, if I'm writing in vein.  Yesterday was rough.  My son had a moment in recess where he felt very sad so he sat quietly by himself.  He had another sad moment right before dinner.  I let him read this.  Well you can look at the first blog entry and read his reaction for yourself.

Today was a little better.  We weren't sad.  We laughed, a lot, just being together.  The week is over.  We made it through.  In our exhaustion we decided to walk across the street and pick up some food.  The three of us got sandwiches and my youngest got Chinese.  On a whim, we all got milkshakes and ice cream.  All in all, it has been a good day.

I was watching the two of them, talking, laughing, and joking.  Their sense of humor is so very different but they are very funny.

Connor:  Uffer gummy bears are good for two things.  They are good in ice cream.
CMC:  And they are good in my tummy.

We all laughed.  I couldn't help but observe that my sons often make me wonder how my dad might have been different if his father hadn't died when he was only a few years older than my oldest son.  What if he didn't have to grow up early or live through a war?  Would he have retained that same unabashed joy and hilarity as his grandsons?

My father considered himself a very serious person.  Yet, he would laugh, make jokes, and have fun.  The first time the family gathered in his house since his death was the week after my birthday.  My aunt, my dad's oldest sister had decided to do something to celebrate my birthday.  It made my day in ways I can't even begin to express.  It took the edge off my sadness.  My other aunt, my dad's sister-in-law noted it was hard and how we all missed him so much.  She then added, it wasn't as if he was a boring person.  He was actually fun.  I remember how they used to gather around the table and talk and laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

I think I miss my dad's laugh the most.  God gives even as he takes away.  My father told me when I told him I was having another boy, that God gives you exactly what you need.  He said about my sons that they would be brothers and best friends for life.  In a way, I think he was echoing the sentiment he felt towards his own younger brother.  Maybe in some ways he was remembering his relationship with his brother.

My youngest is exactly what we need and God gave us just that.  When my mother died, he was a source of innocent joy to my father in his sadness.  When he couldn't connect with me, he could connect with his youngest grandson.  I feel sad for my youngest son, he never had the chance to be showered with the love and affection of his grandparents the same way his brother had.

As their father and I chatted about that last night before he left on vacation, my husband recalled how he didn't get to say good-bye to my dad.  My father spent the evening sitting on his bed with his grandsons, books piling up, bedtime being delayed as they cuddled with him and he read to them.  I'm glad I didn't rush bedtime that night.  Sometimes, living in the moment, breaking the rules can be a saving grace.  This memory caused my oldest to burst into tears and the sadness that has been overwhelming him welled up again.

His brother did not wish to be left out.

Connor:  Sometimes, when you and daddy talk about Dadu and Dida I feel sad.  [shoveling ice cream in his mouth] but ice cream makes me feel better.

Ice cream should make everyone feel better.  Living #lifeintheconnorverse is our gift from God.  God knows we've needed it.  God knew we would need that little boy and his boundless joy.  He took my mother's love from my son and then his grandfather.  But before all that, He gave him a brother, his best friend, the one who will always love him, the one who will do everything he can to pull him back from the brink.

As the song says, "you give and take away, but my heart will always say, blessed be your name.  Blessed be the name of the Lord."

Waiting for Time

"Generations come and generations go,
but the earth remains forever.
The sun rises and the sun sets,
and hurries back to where it rises."
- Ecclesiastes 1:4-5 (NIV)

There's a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,"
- Ecclesiastes 3:1-4 (NIV)

I have spent the better part of this year being numb.  Winter hasn't helped, I think.  My seedlings are slowly coming to life and my father's garden is slowly starting to take on a little bit of life.  The true test will be the months of August and early fall when the garden should be in full force.  I'm wondering if we can bring his garden to life.  Maybe it can help us heal in the process.  Only time will tell I suppose.

Why It's Impossible to Let Go

My father used to tell the story like this....

His poor widowed mother took him and his younger brother and left him on the front steps of a distant cousin's home.  This distant cousin also happened to be the headmaster of a boarding school.  She wanted her sons to have an education.  He and his little brother would sleep on the same bed until another bed became available for him.  I forget the details in its entirety now.

To make a long story short, he did get his education.  He worked his way up to a Masters in Physics.  He once told me the story of how he flunked English in college because he had spent all his time and focus on Mathematics and soccer.  So the following year, he focused on English and less on the other two.  He got top marks in English but his grade in Math went down.  Not sure why that detail sticks out in my head.

He said he came to America because on the Bangladeshi passport that he had said it would grant the bearer entry into every country except Israel.  My father loved to travel.  So he moved to America just to travel to Israel.  I'm sure I'm over simplifying that significant event of his life.  But that's a story for another day.

When he came to this country, this man who had worked as a programmer in a cholera research institute, held a Masters in physics, wrote better English than most of Americans his age, worked whatever job he could to keep his family well provided.  I never knew growing up how efficiently my father ran his family finances on a shoe string budget.  I wouldn't learn that until I became an adult and offered to shred my dad's personal papers.  It was a herculean task and I soon gave up.  He had saved everything.  It was too much to shred.

But in that short time, I learned that my father wrote check after check for my class trips to see Broadway shows.  I have fond memories of those trips.  They became more significant after that shredding episode.  He really couldn't afford to spend that extra, but he did and he made it work.

One of the jobs he held was that of a grocery store clerk.  He told me how to bag my groceries and how to arrange the cold items together.  Vegetables should be together.  To coin my mother's favorite phrase, there's an art to it.  This is why, to this day, I hate other people bagging my groceries.  It is a pet peeve of mine.  I like my groceries bagged just the way I like them.  It drives me nuts when I go shopping with someone and watch them just stuff things in bags.

Funny how something an mundane as grocery shopping and bagging my groceries will always be a part of my father.  

What I Can Never Be

I used to joke that my personal ATM was my father's pocket.  My mother often used to get annoyed at me and my father because we fought a lot.  I mean a lot.  It exasperated her that he couldn't do anything without me.  Technically, he could never do anything without including his children.

My first apartment was viewed by what my husband jokingly calls the "committee."

My dad liked his bananas green.  My mother liked hers a little more ripe.  At home, he would start eating the bananas and she would finish them.  At work (yes, I worked with my dad for the past decade) he would call me and ask me if I wanted bananas when they got too ripe for him to eat.  I would walk upstairs to get bananas.  I miss the bananas and the change for the vending machine.  He always had an endless supply of change in his desk drawer.

My dad used to take the ferry to work everyday.  He did that over twenty years.  He was forever bent over his briefcase, writing.  I remember once asking him if he saw the sunrise or maybe it was the sunset.  I don't remember right now.  He seemed surprised but I could be as stubborn in my need to march to my own drums as he was determined to lead a structured existence.  I missed the trip to Israel but I did get a post card from him.  He missed me.  More importantly, he missed seeing the wonders of all the Biblical sights through my eyes.  He walked down the Via Delarosa and while reading his post card, my heart smiled as the song played in my head.

If I stop thinking these random thoughts, I have to remember that I am no longer Daddy's Girl.  It was my favorite, most loved role in life.  Hard to let go of something you love so dearly, but I'm trying.

I remember a story my father-in-law told me after my dad died.  My children were, as usual, calling their father.  I finally found out the real reason why his children call him by his name instead of dad.  He mentioned that maybe he regretted it because of the way it initially impacted his daughter.  But seeing him and my sister-in-law, I can say one thing for sure, the only time you stop being daddy's girl is when he's gone.

The voice in my head is sarcastically wishing me luck in my transitioning.  Would I be crazy if I told it to shut the hell up?

The Day My Dad Died

Father died after the Winter Solstice.  But he died closer to the equator so maybe that’s irrelevant.  He died the day before what would have been my mother’s birthday.  That’s a little more relevant probably.

He told me a story before he left for his vacation in Bangladesh.  It would be the first time he would return to the country of his birth, the final resting place of his beloved.  That’s what she was to him, his beloved.  My father may not have started out as a romantic but my mother remade him that way.

Christmas 2016 would have been the first time my family (mother, father, brother, and I) would spend apart.  I just never imagined the full scope of that truth.  No one ever plans to go on vacation the way we did that Christmas.

 

The weekend before, I remember my father’s smile as he told me a story about my mother’s birthday some years past.  It’s a smile story.  Before he left the house that morning he told my mother to be ready; when he returned, they would go out to eat dinner for her birthday.  She was still working and on this particular day, she happened to be home.  She greeted him at the door of the porch.  Before he even had a chance to take off his shoes and enter the house, she told him to get ready.  Dinner was waiting.  He remembered the blue salwar she wore.  Then I showed him the picture in my phone.  I had forgotten the story behind the picture but now I
remembered.  It had been a very nice birthday.  There was five of us sitting at her table that night, celebrating with her. 

I don’t know if he ever had a chance to share that story with my brother.  It’s the story he told in the letter he wrote to my mother.  Then he went out to the market and died from a heart attack.  My father died. 

He just couldn’t live without her, his beloved.  So he went home just in time for her birthday.  He never did visit her grave after putting her there.  Instead, they laid his body beside her, on a shore distant from this one. 

Across the miles, two oceans away, something inside me died when I saw my father’s body, lying on a slab of steel.  He looked asleep, like I have seen him a thousand times.  They had dressed him in one of his suits.  The tie around his neck was one I had picked out from Macy’s.  According to Samsung Health app, I clocked over 18K steps.  The collar was unbuttoned.  He looked unkempt, my father, who was always impeccably, or as he used to say, “smartly” dressed. 

When I close my eyes, I see the look on his face in the semi darkness of early morning outside of JFK’s terminal.  He’s dressed for travel.  There is an excitement about him.  I feel a thrill of jealous impatience because my trip won’t start for another week.  I check my phone constantly to see where his flight is.  I got him an early Christmas present, an unlocked Galaxy S7.  I went to bed late and sure enough, he sent me a video chat from Dubai.  I video chatted with my niece and saw him as he finally cleared customs in Bangladesh the following morning.  On Monday he woke me up before my alarm clock, grinning ear to ear, introducing me to relatives I don’t remember. 

This should have been an image of his retirement.  I wasn’t ready for the call I got that Thursday.  I left the country with my tail between my legs, running as far as the plane, and train would let me.  I got as far as Paris.  It was my idea.  I should have at least had the chance to show it to him. 

Pain this great becomes a silent cry that often echoes in your head.  Or maybe that’s just me.  My father loved to write.  He wrote a lot.  But he was a practical man, his words, not mine.  I am a writer, an artist, so this is my father’s swan song, sung by me. 

My father is dead, my words have scattered his ashes oceans away.  My voice has been silent, now it must be broken.