What's missing this Christmas.

Losing my dad is such a tricky thing. 

I go through spouts of emotional amnesia.  Times when my soul feels lighter and the thought of my dad doesn't make the depths inside ache so much.  I think of him, miss him, and find some sort of peace with that.  I carry him around with me like a comforting blanket, and it actually feels nice.

And then, just as suddenly as the lightness came, it is gone unexplicably.  Tears well up out of nowhere.  As I am reading some story, or hearing some tune, or witnessing some seemingly insignificant interaction.  The tears are there, and then comes the memories.  The stories I've told myself over and over.  The feelings I felt were gone- they come back. 

I will miss my dad this Christmas. 

One of those familiar memories cropped up today and it was accompanied with welling tears.  It was towards the end of my dad's life, unbeknownst to me at the time, and I sat with my dad in an empty lobby.  He sat close to me in a wheelchair, unable to truly communicate.  The distance between us was unbearable. We may have been physically close, but his awareness was miles away.  His soul was close, but his mind was far away. I tried to communicate my feelings to him.   How sorry I was for everything, how much I forgave him for anything he still felt guilt about, how much I wanted him to let go of that guilt. 

I needed reassurance that it was ok that I lived miles away in California.  I wanted him to tell me what I already knew, that he would want this for me.  If he was more aware, he would certainly want me to live out my dreams.  I wanted reassurance that he just wasn't able to give me.

 I spilled out my heart, and he didn't understand.  He just couldn't.  And that, that, was the worst.  That distance.  That inability to be heard.  It still plays out in my life over and over, and I want to let it go.  That familiar aching. 

I have to let it go.

This beautiful song hits SO close to home. 



"You will lose someone you can’t live without,
and your heart will be badly broken,
and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved.
But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp."
— Anne Lamott

I go walkin' in my dreams...

Sometimes, every now and then, you dream a dream that really means something.  I like to interpret dreams and deem them all quite meaningful, but my dream last night was different. 

My dad has made several appearances in my dreams since his death, which was a little over a year ago.  These special dreams have all spoken to me in different ways.  They have all left a very deep impact.  When I awake from a dream involving my dad, I'm not quite fully awake- I'm still somewhat connected to the dream world where we can share the same space. I really miss simply sharing the same space.

Last night's dream is still floating around in my soul. My dad was there.  And I hugged him.  I have never really touched him in any dreams that I can remember.  He is always around, I am aware he is not alive, he is just there.  Last night, I knew he wasn't alive, and I hugged him.  I hugged him so hard.  I felt the hug in my very being, I can still feel how it felt.  I hugged him in the way where you squeeze your eyes real tight and your hugging is coming from the core of you.  It was that kind of hug.

Thinking of it now makes me extremely comforted.  And loved.  It really meant a lot.

My dad's pottery.

These pottery pieces were my dad's.  He loved them and displayed them on the mantle in our house growing up.  They were some of the only things that were uniquely his.  He didn't really care too much for fancy clothes, fancy decorations, or fancy foods...but he passionately loved fancy architecture (Frank Lloyd Wright was his favorite architect) and these fancy pots!

My mom let me and my brother choose which pieces of pottery we would like to have from my dad's collection.  I chose these and have displayed them in various ways in my apartment over the past few months. 

I recently re-organized my arts and crafts supplies and came up with creative solutions for storing my artsy stuff.  My dad was an artist, an architect, a tree-house designer...so in a lot of ways I like to see him as guiding me in my creativity.  I like to think that he can be there for my inspirations, push me further, and encourage me into new artistic endeavors.  I decided to store my paint pens and brushes in these pots.  I will only place them in very clean, of course, but I like the idea of incorporating these pieces into my creative process.  I like the idea that my dad's energy can mingle with my creative tools.  I hope that he would like my current use for these, and I will continue to take the very best care of them!

This is the last piece of my life, he said.

Saw this on Meg's beautiful blog today and it gave me chills.  It immediately reminded me of my dad towards the end of his life.  How his body became frail, his mind abstract, his touch almost non-existent.  He had previously been depressed about his deterioration, yet became increasingly light-hearted towards the end.  I imagine these words somehow touch on what he must have felt like. Yes, chills. Goosebumps.

  "The day he first told me he
was starting to disappear I
didn't believe him & so he stopped
& held his hand up to the sun & it
was like thin paper in the light &
finally I said, you seem very calm
for a man who is disappearing &
he said it was a relief after all
those years of trying to keep the
pieces of his life in one place. 
Later on, I went to see him
again & as I was leaving, he
put a package in my hand.
     This is the last piece of my 
life, he said. take good care 
of it & then he smiled & was
gone & the room filled with the
sound of the wind & when I
opened the package there was
nothing there & I thought
there must be some mistake 
or maybe I dropped it & I 
got down on my hands &
knees  & looked until the light
began to fade & then slowly
I felt pieces of my life 
fall away & suddenly I 
understood what he meant 
& I lay there for a long 
time crying & laughing at
the same time. "
Brian Andreas
Story People