VALERIE SCHULTZ: Missing dad not as painful as forgetting him
| Tuesday, Nov 10 2009 04:43 PM
Last Updated Tuesday, Nov 10 2009 04:43 PM
The U.S. Navy has taken good care of my dad, a former sailor, even in death. At his funeral in July, an honor guard of three young sailors came to the cemetery, to present my mother with an American flag. Then one of them played taps as we laid my dad to rest. Three months later, the Navy delivered a grave marker for their old quartermaster signalman, a simple bronze plaque that memorializes my dad's name and rank and pertinent dates. I went to see the marker last week, with my mother and three of my siblings. I think our dad rests peacefully knowing he is forever identified as a sailor.
It is now four months since my dad died, a third of a year of life that he has not experienced with us. A new grandchild has been born, and another granddaughter is engaged. We've had to get used to him not being around to harass us and guide us and cheer for us. You wouldn't think that one person would be missed so much in a family of 27 and counting, but my dad was a larger-than-life character in all of our lives. All of us -- my mother, my siblings, my brothers- and sisters-in-law, my husband, my children, my nieces and nephews -- are still mourning him in our own ways.
Every Sunday this fall I've missed my dad calling me to hash over the outcomes of the football games played that day. I know he'd be razzing me about continuing as a Brett Favre fan, in spite of his traitorous purple uniform. Football season just isn't the same without my dad, the guy who taught me, when I was an awkward 12-year-old, everything I know about football. I miss him calling to ask me if I knew the answer to that evening's Final Jeopardy. I miss him giving me his recent issues of The New Yorker and The Atlantic Monthly every time I went to visit, and then wanting to discuss his favorite articles the next time I visited. I miss him cutting me a bouquet of his roses, meticulously wrapped in layers of damp paper towel and then aluminum foil, to take home with me. There's so much to miss.
My little niece might have put it best: On the eve of Halloween, she tearfully demanded of her mother, my sister, "Who's going to eat all my Almond Joys this year?" That was Grandpa's job. We all miss him hugely.
People who have lost a loved one tell me that there is a process to grieving. The insurmountable waves of tears get less frequent and less intense. The paralysis of grief is supplanted by the pang of an aching heart. The feeling of loss becomes more of a companion, less of an intruder. The unbearable sweetness of life beckons and draws you back into its spell. Not that you ever quite forget that your loved one is no more. You still get caught off-guard by a song, by a comment, by an old fellow driving a Lincoln the exact color of your dad's. But you cope, and you smile, and you remember, and you go forward.
Except that I am sometimes afraid I am forgetting my dad. I have photos, of course, and even a precious video clip of my dad from a film my sister and her husband once made with their church youth group, in which they asked people to expound on the meaning of life. It's a treasure. But I'm afraid I'm forgetting the fact of his physical existence, his laugh, his mannerisms, his history, his human skin, his very incarnation, because now I tend to think of him as my dad who died.
My mother and my sister have been attending a bereavement support group at a hospital in the Los Angeles area. They say it helps to share their sadness and recent experiences with others who know exactly what they're living through. They find some comfort in listening to the stories of the other people in the group. I'm glad they're going and benefitting from the power of a support group. I wish that the only grief group listed in my local newspaper didn't meet at a time when I am at work.
From the shadow of grief, I believe in the afterlife. I believe my dad's bright soul lives on in eternity with God. I sometimes sense my dad's presence, although that may be wishful thinking. I do believe he's watching out for all of us, from some sacred and unknowable dimension. On good days, I find solace in that faith. On bad days, I mope and frown. I want to go back in time. I'm not ready to be fatherless. I am not unique: No one is ever ready to lose a beloved someone. But the cycle of life and death and life cannot be denied. It cannot be avoided. It can only be endured, and respected, and finally, embraced.
