This Fragile, Mortal Coil

Dear Claire,

How do I explain to you who my father was? It all feels so fraught. I don't know where or how to begin.

He died when I was 11. He had cancer.

See, saying that word was hard. I don't want to teach you that word. People can't bring themselves to say "cancer". They say the "dreaded C word", instead. I don't want to sugarcoat it, though. The horror of the disease needs to be honored by name.

So, there. I have begun. Yet...

How do I explain who I am? How do I explain being so formed by his absence?

One hot, August night, I was baptized in the waters of loss. When I came up for air, dizzy and disoriented, I found my identity unwillingly transformed.

I was not myself when he died -- in an instant, a fatherless child navigating in the murky depths of grief. In a sense, I am not myself now. Or, rather, I'm more than I appear to be. A part of me remains hidden. I guard this place like an animal protecting a wound, daring anyone to try and come near. Your papa does not know what I have shared with no one.

But I worry you sense that a part of me is unreachable. I wonder how this history that I keep silent separates me from you, as well as the ones I love.

Telling you is its own thorny road, though. I don't want to share childhood memories of my dad, and have you detect pain in my voice. I worry that this story of loss will change your own sense of self. How will you grapple with who "Grampy" is? My stepdad is the only Grampy you have ever known. Yet, he is not your Grandpa by blood.

It's all so confusing. Will it be too much for you? Will you fear your own papa dying?

These thoughts are too dark for a young mind. I struggle to imagine you contemplating them. I want to shield you from their dizzying and disorienting effects. Right now, you believe that the sun rose for the first time on the day you were born. Someday, I will have to tell you that the moon and the stars existed before you.

Talking about my own childhood loss makes this fragile, mortal coil feel even more present. It signifies my powerlessness to protect you, just as my parents could not protect me.

I know for sure that you will never know how I lie in bed at night, and pray to God that you never have to go through what I went through. You will never know that I wake up in the middle of the night to make sure you are breathing. I fear I am cursed, and that you and your papa are too good to be true.

But silence can cause more damage than revelation, I've found. These words have not come easily for me today. Perhaps, I have written them more for me than for you. I feel no closer to knowing what to say to you when you are older. Maybe, a poet's words will help you understand one day:

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He is Dead

To mourn full-throated like W. H. Auden is to honor his memory. This past is your birthright. Someday, you may take part in the grieving too. You may desire to know your grandpa, to understand me, to commune in our family history -- maybe, even to know and understand yourself.

This story of loss ends in triumph anyhow. After all, you are my father's and your grandfather's legacy, Claire...unique and beautiful, Claire.

Love,
Mama

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Joining Finish the Sentence Friday with Janine, Kristi, Stephanie, Kate.

The Moral of the Story

I haven't been able to put words to my feelings about the verdict in the Trayvon Martin case. A lump of confusion, helplessness and outrage has been stuck in my throat.

I can barely think about losing my child, let alone so senselessly and with so little remorse from the person responsible. I dread the day when I'll have to tell my daughter that the world can be cruel and unfair. Claire's too young to understand right now, but she will come to me for answers someday. In light of last week's verdict, I feel profoundly helpless about my ability to give her good ones. 


A strange circumstance brought these thoughts and feelings into focus for me the other day. Claire and I were singing along to Little Bunny Foo Foo on the IPod. The song's supposed to be fun. It's always been fun. Since I can remember, this morality tale has been merrily teaching kids that actions have consequences, that might does not make right, and that justice can be on the side of the little guy.

As we sang the song, it wasn't so fun anymore. The tale of Little Bunny Foo Foo didn't seem to match our world. Reality wasn't as cut and dry as the moral of the story would have us believe.

I started to wonder if Little Bunny Foo Foo needed to be rewritten in light of the Trayvon Martin verdict. How would the song go if Little Bunny Foo Foo lived in Florida? What if he had claimed "Stand Your Ground" to The Good Fairy? Would she have let Little Bunny Foo Foo go free? How many more field mice would be bopped on the head for the sport of Little Bunny Foo Foo? Singing with my daughter, questions filled my mind.

How do you teach children the difference between right and wrong in a world that sometimes seems so lacking of a moral compass?

Claire asked to hear the song again, like toddlers do. I obliged. I loved that song when I was little. I believed in its lessons. I still believe. Peace. Justice. Equality. They are universal lessons.

But I felt a bit of a sham sharing them with Claire that day. l couldn't help but think of Trayvon Martin's mom. Life's more complicated than Little Bunny Foo Foo.

I looked at my daughter singing, and I longed for the innocence of a child.


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Photo Source: Milos Milosevic, Flickr

Ancestor Worship

I confessed to my husband once that I was never in a hurry to get married and have kids. Both seemed to symbolize leaving my youth behind, like I was hurling myself more quickly towards the grave.

I'm surprised to find that the opposite is true too. Having Claire has connected me to my past in ways that I never could have imagined.

I find myself telling Claire stories of her long gone relatives. “Your great-grandpa made that lamp," I say as I amble around the apartment with her in my arms. “Wait til you see your great-grandma’s Christmas ornaments," as I share what’s in store for her this December. “My gramps used to love to whistle when I was little. I was so jealous that I couldn’t," I reminisce.

When I look at her, I see the line of my grandmother’s chin and the set of her jaw. I pointed this out to my Uncle Dave, as we watched her napping as an infant. He said “Well, when she’s sleeping she looks a lot like Nanny." I said, “Yeah. Nanny sure loved to sleep." We both had a good laugh thinking of days past.

My father died when I was young, and my husband has always lamented the fact that he never got to know him. It hasn’t happened yet, but perhaps Claire will have his strong will or display one or more of his mannerisms...then, George can get a glimpse.

Of course, I also see bits of George and myself in her. Finding our shared traits is delightful and warms my heart.

But there is something more significant about seeing generations gone resurrected in my daughter. In her birth, Claire has given me an invaluable look back.


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Holidays without My Father

We might as well have strung lights on the white elephant in the room instead of the tree that first Christmas after my dad died. I was eleven that year, and Christmas was surreal. Words like "sad" or "painful" would probably seem the obvious choices. They work too, but mainly surreal.

My family didn't have the emotional resources to deal with the pain, so we just pretended everything was normal for Christmas. And suffered inside in silence. I don't blame my family. We were all doing the best that we could in a horrible situation.

But it was a brutal way for an eleven year old to learn that the outer world doesn't necessarily have to match your internal experience.

So, when Father's Day rolled around the following year, I was happy to ignore the festivities altogether. Ignoring was preferable to pretending.

Over the years, Christmas has become filled with new associations. The holiday doesn't remind me of my dad so much anymore. When I celebrate with my family, my internal reality generally matches the outside one. As it should be.

Father's Day has not changed. I have continued to act as if this holiday doesn't exist. In a mixed-up way, my stance is how I choose to honor my dad, how I honor the experience of losing him. If he is absent, so is the holiday. No pretending, just remove the white elephant altogether.

Now, there's Claire. And her father, George. The elephant returns (really, it never went away). Last year was our first Father's Day together. I wasn't sure how I was going to feel about it. Surprisingly, I enjoyed participating in the holiday again. My husband is a great father, and deserves to be celebrated. The ritual of the holiday seemed a quite lovely, if slightly uninspired, way to honor the family that we have become.

I felt a slight twinge of discomfort about betraying my father's memory, leaving him behind somehow. But not as much as I thought I would. I mainly felt sad that he won't ever be a part of our new family.

Still, the experience of losing a father brings into focus the reality of the shadow side of holidays. The side that you won't find on a Hallmark card.

Fathers die. They aren't around for their kids. Relationships can be strained or fragile. Whatever the circumstances of the loss, holidays can be like a finger in an open wound to those who have bonds that are broken.

These harsh realities aren't reason to begrudge people celebrating one another on Father's Day or any other holiday. I need to remember that they exist though. I am one of the people who has lived despite loss. I no longer have a father.

His death has made me that much more grateful for George, my daughter's father. I am that much more grateful that Claire has a dad with whom we can both celebrate this Father's Day.


JD Bailey from Honest Mom helped inspire this post.

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Grieving the Unknown

I was eight weeks pregnant when George and I were married. I had a miscarriage at 13 weeks. At the time, I wrote this piece to mourn and heal.

I thought there was no grieving without knowing

I thought mourning was fueled by

Lost relationships and experiences shared

Losing you is a different thing

Potential uncoils,

Missing the change in the curve of my waist

The place I touched to remind me that you were there, oh, so, barely there

Letting go a shift in consciousness that readied to make room for you

Getting used to no morning sickness, for Pete's sake!

Such elusive things seem to add up to knowing you

Well, you will remain in a million wedding pictures and I will remember the proverbial twinkle in your dad’s eye

He wondered if you had thoughts before this

He would talk to you, just in case

We had so many questions, my mystery and my hope

I have them now too,

I want to know could I have saved you

Did I do something wrong?

I want to know if you knew us, if you will remember us

I fear the answer is no

But I’ll never know

Something else to grieve

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Soul Search

 

The Homage, Marc Chagall, 1972

I stare endlessly at my daughter and marvel. Her face is compelling, purely because she is mine. Sometimes, my purpose is to see how she’s grown and changed. More often, I simply wish to behold.

Lately, I’ve been looking for my father. I search for him in the shape of her eyes, the set of her mouth, the way she furrows her brow. No trace of my dad is evident there, at least not yet.

I don’t know which I fear more...that my daughter will never come to resemble him...or that I have lost the ability to recognize him altogether.

My dad died when I was eleven. I am now 45. Much of my life has been marked without him in it. I have come to identify more with his absence than his presence.

Sadly, this space only grows larger as I grow older. Tragically, I no longer miss my dad.

I long for him, though. I search for him, too. Lately, I’m searching for my father in my daughter’s face.