father's day. sort of.

First of all, I wish to confess that I am not a fan of these designated days of sentiment and gifts. Even if you took away all the commercial crap attached to them, it still rings forced and hollow to me. An externally-imposed obligation. Same goes for all the other red letter days of the year. I love my family. I love my time with them. I feel very loved by them. Every day. Not a fan of The Special Days.

That said, all this Dad talk today gets me thinking about my own father who died twenty years ago. I was actually first reminded by this quote that appeared on my Twitter feed this morning:

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”-Rumi

That was certainly true for me. My father's illness and death was completely intertwined with my own experience as a first-time mom. I had lived in a bubble until he became terminally ill. Despite working in an Emergency Department for several years, and seeing every possible type of accident and illness, I somehow thought that those terrible things only happened to other people. I had managed to get through my first twenty five years without a death in the family. Even family pets seemed to be given away before they ever died! My father's stage 4 diagnosis and my own first miscarriage of a much-wished-for-child occurred on the very same day and that was a defining moment in my life. I realized we're all truly in the same boat and none of us are exempt from the sorrows of life. The bubble had burst. Whenever the grass looks greener on the other side, I remind myself of this again. Or, as REM put it, Everybody hurts. Sometime.

I went on to have a successful pregnancy some months later. My father, remarkably, had a few months of feeling much better, accomplishing some of the best work of his life, before his illness yanked him out of the life he had known once and for all . He was a writer and journalist and worked like a fiend. One of his most helpful bits of advice was, You know the writing is good when the words don't get in the way. In other words, the meaning just flows. The reader understands. When I would get stuck in an essay for school he would say, Decide what you are trying to say and say it. I still use that one every day when my thoughts are jumbled and the meaning seems just out of reach.

When my daughter was born, my parents came to see us in the hospital. My father sat and held her, his own skin covered in a strange purple rash from his chemotherapy. In another irony, we had chosen our girl's name about two years earlier. It's a derivative of my dad's name. I was very teary-eyed realizing how the torch was being passed. A half hour later my mom and dad headed to the seventh floor of the same hospital where he was admitted and remained for the rest of his days. The cancer was winning. It did seem like a cruel and ironic exchange program.

My maternity leave from work enabled me to spend the next six months immersed both in new motherhood and the last days of my father's life. Had I not lost the first pregnancy, the timing would have been completely off. I would have been back to work, torn between time with the baby and time with my dad. Instead, fate intervened and I was given all the time I needed exactly when I needed it. I also managed to have one of those very agreeable babies that nursed like a piglet and never cried so she was quiet enough to sneak into the palliative care area whenever I wanted. The nurses were torn between wanting to reprimand me for potentially exposing her to illnesses and asking to hold her. I basically ignored them on both counts, knowing where I wanted to be and that I had to breast-feed on demand to be able to be there.

Six months later, on what turned out to be the day before my dad died, I came to the hospital to visit him and my mom. I had the baby in the Snuggly. I had just returned to work a few days before. My dad was sleeping and as I stood quietly chatting with my mother, the baby suddenly let out a big coo! My father opened his eyes and smiled at us. Hello, Lovey, he said and closed his eyes again, back into that deep, but unrestful heavily-medicated sleep.

And that's my last memory of him alive.

“Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.”-Rumi

I did indeed grieve and still do, but I also see how what was lost has indeed returned in many different ways.

PS: Manley, on the other hand, seems to loves these 'designated days' so we're off to do something to make his Father's Day special.