Connections

As a child, I loved nature and the outdoors. When I needed some alone time, I would often grab a plastic milk crate and, with that in hand, climb one of the pecan trees in our backyard.  High up in the tree, I would place the crate upside down in the branches and sit on it so I could relax as I felt the breeze blowing through the limbs and watch what was going on below.

One thing I've found since my dad went on ahead is a renewed feeling of that love for the open air and the peace that it gives me; it makes me feel some of the connection to my dad that I, like many others who have lost loved ones, am seeking - so much so that we often end up noticing, watching for, and even collecting things that remind us of our loved one.  Just like I did up in those tree branches many years ago, these days I find peace in the sight of a rainbow or a particularly magnificent sunset or a bird that seems to be looking right at me for an atypical amount of time.

A few months after my dad died, I mentioned in conversation with a friend that I derived a little bit of comfort in having some of my dad's things with me - an old shirt of his, a pair of his socks, a book of his with the corners of some pages folded over where he had marked his place.  My friend, who had been through the loss of a parent before me, told me that she understood, and she predicted that at some point I wouldn't feel as strong of a need to hold onto my dad's things because I would feel connected to him through my memories instead.  She may be right, but I'm not there yet.

For as long as I can remember, my dad had a favorite pillow.  He was always a little particular about things that affected the quality of his sleep; I guess that came from getting up so early to run for so many years.  For years while I was growing up, he had an orthopedic-type of pillow that he slept on every night; he even took it on road trips so he would have that one instead of having to sleep on a hotel pillow.  There were several instances when he left his pillow behind in a hotel room, and, when he realized his mistake, he called the front desk at the hotel and with his usual friendliness persuaded an employee to mail it back to him at home.

When I went to the hospital to be with my dad when he first got sick, I brought a pillow from my house.  The pillow case was one that my daughters had tie-dyed months before; I thought it would be good to have an extra one at the hospital for Dad or whomever was staying there with him to use, and I knew the original design of that pillow case would differentiate our pillow from one that was hospital property.  That pillow ended up following us along during the whole time Dad was sick, going with us from the hospital, to rehab, to the hotel where we stayed when we took Dad to the Brain Tumor Clinic at Duke, to my parents' house, to the hospital again, and finally back to my parents' house.  When we brought Dad home from the hospital the last time, we bought about a dozen new pillows to use to position him to try to keep him comfortable in the hospital bed; we encased all of them in blue pillow cases which we'd also purchased just for that purpose.  The pillow in the tie-dyed case wasn't needed anymore, and so I took it to sleep on, first at my parents' house and later at my own house.  I sleep on that pillow every night now; it, like the outdoors and like some of Dad's things from when he was healthy, bring me some comfort in an unexplainable way, especially at night when I seem to need it the most. 

The pillow that followed us

I imagine that it is a universal struggle for those of us left behind to decide what to do with the belongings of the person who has gone on ahead.  Dad would tell us to get rid of it all; he'd think we were being silly and sentimental, and he would point out that it's just stuff.  And it is, but his possessions marked his place in the world, and, in a way, I feel like they still do.  

Everything that changes in my parents' house - even in my house and even in the world around us - is something that takes me further away from him.  The first few times I was at my parents' house [I know I should just call it my mom's house, but sometimes I revert back to referring to it as theirs] after Dad died, I found myself looking around for dust - not to check my mother's housekeeping skills but because I had read somewhere a long time ago that household dust is made up of mostly skin cells, and so I reasoned that some of Dad physically was still there.  I felt - and I still do to some extent - desperate to hold onto anything that has the possibility of making me feel connected to him.  

Along the way, we've cleaned out and gotten rid of some of Dad's stuff; we donated some of his suits and most of the many pairs of running shoes that were crowding his closet.  It felt a little like ripping off a band-aid, except for the fact that it still hurts afterwards too.  Again, I am sure he would have wanted us to give those things to someone who will use them, but letting go of any of it is still a really hard thing to do.  I just don't want to lose any more of him.  

The Church Pew

I'm taking an online grief class, and part of the focus of the class is to put together a collection of memories and pieces of information about the loved one who went on ahead.  We have been given a list of fill-in-the-blank style questions to help in the information gathering process; the list includes things like favorite color, favorite subject in school, first job, hobbies, and words of wisdom.  Some of it is easy for me to complete, some of it is hard to remember or to narrow down, and some of it I don't know.  

It's the latter that really upsets me; it makes me think about just how sad it is that many of my dad's stories died along with him.  Luckily, my mom and my siblings can fill in some of the information that I don't know, but, when they have exhausted their repertoire, that's all there is.  And that hurts in a way that I didn't know existed before.

When my dad was in the hospital waiting for the surgery that resulted in his being officially diagnosed with cancer, he was very talkative, around the clock.  Some of what he spoke about were things he was worried about, mainly my mom and his mom.  He chatted about what he hoped to be able to do when he got out of the hospital.  He asked about each of his grandchildren and said he could hardly wait to see them again.  In between these conversations, though, he said a few things that were out of the blue and some that were out of context and maybe even out of the realm of what we could understand.  One of those things he said was that he could see his dad, who had passed away years before, and a man whom he said was his "first preacher" from when he was a little boy and whom he said had a last name of Whitehead.  According to my dad, he could see both of these men sitting at the end of a church pew.  He didn't seem to know what they were doing or what else was going on in that scene, but it did seem to leave him a little unsettled.

Fast forward about 7 months later, after my dad and then his mom (my grandmother) both had gone on ahead, and my extended family on my dad's side had gathered for a memorial service for my grandmother in her hometown in Alabama, which is where my dad grew up.  I asked several of the people who had known my dad as a child, including his brother, if they remembered a preacher by the name of Whitehead, and they all said they did not recognize the name.  The story remains a mystery, and the fact that it probably always will bothers me, a lot.  I wish I could hold onto every bit of my dad that ever was, every memory and every fact, even those that I didn't know yet.  I guess there is a kind of grief for the loss of those things that comes along with the grief of the loss of a loved one, too, yet another thing that I wish I didn't have to know.