Majestic

Thoughts on Grief

I don’t know how to write about grief. I’ve never lost a father before. It feels like I’ve lost a mile marker or a signpost: This is where you come from. This is the way forward. But my disoriented reaction surprises me. I was never Daddy’s Little Girl. Or maybe I was for a few years before he shut down. I remember running into my father’s arms and wearing a pink ballerina outfit when he came to see my recital. I was 7 or 8 and assumed that watching a bunch of little girls attempt tours jetés was exciting. Looking back, it’s likely that my father missed a televised sporting event to attend our dopey little show. Back then, it was probably just a minor disappointment. Not like how it was in the later years when the television was almost always on, a droning companion eliminating the possibility of silence.

I always knew that my father loved me. He told me every time we spoke on the phone throughout my entire life and each time he hugged me goodbye when he dropped me off at my mother’s house after a visit. I heard the words and felt the truth of them sustaining me even if I knew I wasn’t getting all of him, that some parts of him would always remain out of reach. My siblings and I have talked about this, mourning the parts that he kept to himself. A neighbor I hadn’t known who attended the funeral service spoke about how he used to come to the house just to talk to my father, determined to get to know him. He said, “Jack had reasons for the way he was, reasons he didn’t want to share.”

“I can’t believe he tolerated that,” one of us said recently. Maybe it was me.

“No kidding,” said another of us. We couldn’t picture it. Someone had simply decided to force my dad to talk and my father did talk. I wish I had known that was an option.

The most intimate thing my father ever told me was: The ocean has always seemed majestic to me. We were walking at night along the Jersey shore on vacation. I didn’t say anything back. I was in high school and didn’t know how to meet the moment, to say, Me, too.

My brother, sister, and I realize that we can’t remember when our father stopped going to the beach or why. His difficulty with driving and walking as he grew older, of course. But what about the many years prior to that? His body had been slowly shutting down for a long time. He kept that too to himself and maybe from himself.

Last week, my siblings and I took our dad to the beach, a small portion of his ashes in a zip lock plastic bag within a blue velvet drawstring pouch bearing the name of the funeral home. We originally planned to pour the contents into the ocean and watch him drift away. But then, when I was meditating, I heard his voice: What are you doing? What makes you think I would want to be in the ocean for eternity? This is, for sure, exactly what our father would say.

We all agreed that the bluff overlooking the ocean behind the inn where we stayed was perfect.

I don’t know how to write about grief.