One year later

Tomorrow will be one whole year that my dad is gone. I haven’t gone back to the cemetery since the funeral until today. It always rains when I visit Holy Rood. Today was a day after a heavy overnight downpour, but the skies were still sobbing. I bought a bouquet of fall colored flowers and drove to where I left my dad a year ago.

I have begun to find peace with my father’s death. He lived to nearly 79 years of age. He loved his life, married the woman he adored, had two great kids. He had dozens of friends and many interests and hobbies. He retired, traveled, saw his kids get married; he met his three grandkids. He didn’t get jipped a thing.

I also look at his death as a better alternative to living with Alzheimer’s- the most evil of all diseases. I truly feel that living one more day with that undignified curse of a disease would be worse. Going to be with my dad at the cemetery is something I can do with some peace in my heart. What I am not at peace with yet is that my mom is gone, too. Today was a difficult visit because I can’t ever go visit my dad only- because my mom was there first, and has been there since 1998.

I don’t make regular visits to Holy Rood for my mother. Maybe I should. Over the years, I’ve always felt her near me and I never felt the need to go to where her body lies to be with her. But maybe it would get easier if I made it something I do every now and again. I hope she understands.

I have a mental block about it; not that I’m in denial she’s gone, or that I don’t want to think about her, but I don’t think one location on the earth represents where she is, when she is no longer here. Going to Holy Rood doesn’t bring me closer to her, it just brings me to her resting place. She is not there. She is in my dreams and in the air. She is in the kitchen when I cook and in the words I write. She is in my car when I drive at night. In my uncontrollable laughter. In my salty tears.

I’m still bitterly angry and hurt about this loss. Perhaps I always will be. Perhaps I haven’t grieved her properly or fully yet. Will I ever be okay with the fact that my mother was taken from her happy life before her time? Will I ever understand why she never got to retire, never got to see her children get married, never got to pick up her grandkids? I don’t know. Yes, I do.

A good cry and then it’s on with living, right? Living with appreciation of the people in your life. Living with appreciation of every day you still get. It only sounds cliche to people living too charmed a life to really understand it. I pay my respect and my love to my mother and my father in the way I live: with generosity, kindness and truth. By being the daughter they raised: smart, strong and kind. By loving my brother and supporting him in everything he does. I may try to visit them more often and bring my mother flowers. But most of that other stuff, (which to me sounds much more important) I can do that from anywhere. Love you, mom and dad. xoxoxo