Reaching
Posted on | July 28, 2006 |
Tonight the room is supple with heat. On the kitchen counter, new red potatoes, yellow tomatoes, and a half-drunk bottle of bully hill wine—red and sweet. Outside, the dark ink of night pools up against window panes.
Since we moved to this hilltop, wild with poplar saplings and clover, I find myself thinking often of my dad, though rarely in the way I used to do—remembering small fragments of the life I knew with him at its center. Now it is almost as though I’m catching glimpses of him right here beside Bean and me, as we ramble about the yard, walking with tall sticks, or finding small fossils. And as if they were some ethereal proof of this, dragon flies and butterflies as wide-winged as the palm of my hand, often follow us about, or settle near us on windy stems of grass.
It seems as though moving here, I’ve inadvertently moved beyond the bitter sweet of remembering—to some place that follows the improbable zig zag flight of finches towards the future.
I stumble over my thoughts tonight, wanting like I always do, to reach out and touch what the experience of loosing my father was, and never grasping more than empty air. As though the experience were a foreign film that I’ve watched a hundred times, and still the crux of the story remains a mystery: lost in translation between what the living mind can know and the spirit mind cannot say. He died four years ago, yesterday.
Outside moths with wings like frothy chocolate beat against the screen, trying to touch the light. Sometimes I’m angered by them: their innate stupidity sends them again and again up against the scorching heat of a flame or bulb, and in the morning I find their delicate corpses scattered on the sill. Other times I understand them utterly: that fierce longing to know what exists just beyond the grasp of all things knowable. In a way I am like them, throwing myself again and again at the mystery of death, trying to reach out and touch the light on the other side.
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11 Responses to “Reaching”
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July 28th, 2006 @ 1:17 am
I just saw the film “Truly, Madly, Deeply” with Juliet Stevenson. It looked at the way we love someone after they die… that we push aside the bad and romanticize the good, forgetting that this was a real relationship with a real person. I’m not at all suggesting that your dad had faults, but I hear that in our loss, the idea that in death the ache is so tangible and wild. I don’t know what I’m trying to say, just that I hear you and I feel the edges of your loss. Here are some loving thoughts from far away. Smooches.
July 28th, 2006 @ 2:53 am
I do not know if this will be comforting or horrifying to hear, but it is meant to be comforting. Sixteen years after losing my father I find that I can go days and weeks without thinking of him, of my loss, and then he will suddenly be right there at my side, in my son’s dimple that comes from him, a cloud formation, a picture of his favorite fishing spot. He’s always there, somewhere, but after 16 years of trying I am no closer to understanding his life and death than I was the day he died. But I have come to see that I don’t need to. I know one, two, three incontrovertable things about my father and in a world of shape-shifters trying to hide our true selves from each other, that is a mighty thing to know.
Don’t try to grasp too hard…let your father settle on you like mist, like dew. It stays longer that way.
July 28th, 2006 @ 7:58 am
Oh Christina…those last few lines made me gasp. Take comfort in those dragonflies and butterflies that hover nearby.
July 28th, 2006 @ 8:24 am
Beautifully written…and I love the painting.
July 28th, 2006 @ 8:34 am
I think that the mystery of death will come all too soon, regardless of whether it is tomorrow or in 50 years. Either way, I refuse to throw myself toward it while I have my time here. That light can wait, impatiently or not, for me.
July 28th, 2006 @ 10:10 am
I think it is great that you’ve been able to move past the things that frustrated you about your Dad and remember some of the good. I don’t know much about your relationship or how bad the bad things were, but it seems to me that you’re evolving to a place that is healthier for you…and letting go of things that brought you pain. That’s wonderful…
July 28th, 2006 @ 10:58 am
Steph–like all relationships there were certainly some bad things–but mostly, we had a wonderful, deep, rich relationship. I felt incredibly lucky to have him as a father–especially when he was alive. It wasn’t our relationship that brought pain–it was it’s ending that did, if that makes sense. And now, somehow in the process of moving, I’ve moved forwards to a new place in our relationship–if that is conceivable. A place beyond the longing reach of memory.
Elaine–I agree, it’s easy to do. And that tendency says something about our deep inherent understanding of what matters, doesn’t it. So many times in life it’s easy to cut people off, or to end things, or to walk away–while with death we remember a completely different set of experiences… I try, like any dutiful writer, to train my lens to view both, to remember both, to keep both in the container of my memory and love.
And Liz–what a different way of looking at things. *grin* I’m with you. Death can certainly wait for me, impatiently, or not, too! Its mystery though, does me with wonder. Especially in those moments when I wake from sleep, when the edges of a dream are still near, and I feel for a moment as though the gap between this dimension and that one has lessened. It’s this that keeps me wondering, coming back again to the big questions human beings have always asked about the meaning of things.
July 28th, 2006 @ 3:49 pm
i cannot even begin to fathom how you feel.
i can tell you that
someone once told me
that grief was like an onion…
there are layers upon layers…
and that made sense to me.
i lost my best friend in 1990.
the sadness comes in cycles…
the way the sun shines through
the trees and hits the road just
about an hour before sunset,
bon jovi videos,
girls that hide shyly behind
long curly hair,
fisher price toys…
and suddenly i’m transported.
so…
i guess…
thats what i have to offer…
the assurance that it will
come in cycles.
and in layers.
and hugs…
July 28th, 2006 @ 4:23 pm
…and if you had to go, wouldn’t you rather go in a burst of heat and light…letting your wings singe with the flame of having tried…
July 29th, 2006 @ 11:53 am
Elaine, I adore that movie - it’s one of my favorites. I saw it when I was falling in love after a long time and I remember how much it made me cry.
Christina honey, this is amazing and heartbreaking, in that wonderful way you have. I love that you can sense his presence, that you feel that he is close by. I can’t fathom your loss, but only know that it will unfold, what having him meant and what losing him will become…
July 31st, 2006 @ 11:35 pm
you capture well what is feels to lose someone as your thoughts drift to him in the quiet moments.
you write so eloquently and not only to you paint pictures for us to enjoy, you paint pictures in our minds as well.
your words this past week on my blog have lifted my spirit.
how i wish we could meet for tea…
love,
boho