The Bitter Sweetness of Nostalgia

I have been exposing myself to the places that he used to take me as a child- there's still little girls with their fathers playing everywhere. Sometimes all I could do is smile with a tear in my eye. There are some days that the tears fall like rain; silent and calming, onto the ground before me while I hide so no one can see. Grief is funny, this much I know. I never know what to expect on a sunny day in the park with my daughters or at their baseball games when all of the little girls are playing catch with their fathers. I can't remember if he and I ever played catch though I know wherever he was, I was also there. We were inseparable when I was a kid. It occurred to me that I never talk about those years. I talk about the years that left scars behind instead. My clients at the cancer practice always ask me what stage of grief I think they're in- they want an explanation for the way that things are. The only thing I know is that when you've reached acceptance, you have only accepted the fact that there's something to accept but the actual act of accepting a loved ones death, I feel, doesn't actually ever happen but knowing that's ok is the important part. I loved my father and watching his hand fall from the side of his hospital bed was one of the hardest things I ever had to do. How it is possible to ever accept such an act or forget such a day, I don't know. I help people rise above their grief like I was able to rise above mine but never has that meant that we have gotten over it or that from time - to - time we won't relive it. Reliving days is the easy part because then we dont have to be without those who we have lost. Nostalgia is endearing--it is the band-aide for hurts that have yet to heal. I love when I can close my eyes and still smell the wood chips in the parks we went to or hear the water splashing in the pool as we played my favorite childhood games. I hear his voice and all I could think of is how much I miss it even though that voice wasn't always the most pleasant. I worked through all of this throughout the past four years. It's been four whole years and I still hold those last 8 hours of his life in my heart as if they happened yesterday. Time is unexplainable when seen through the eyes of grief. Today is one of those days when I swear it was all a dream and I am hoping to wake up. It was a rotten dream and no one should have to see their parent in that kind of place. No one should have to tell a story like his. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a cleaner, better person because of those two weeks by his bedside. The inescapable pain somehow rewired the person to see things in a different light. When you're always expecting the worst, that's what you'll get until you learn to see things differently- that's what his death taught me, to see things differently. I could have given up and there were so many days that I wanted to but I knew there was more to me than that. My soul was so tired and I don't even know what that means. I just know that I felt something different for once in my life and it was enough to write about it and continue to write about it. The part that was the hardest to grasp was how a person who helped create me could be gone and taken by his own cold, weak hand. This brings me to the subject of forgiveness and how I believe we can never really forgive because it's impossible to forget what had been done. So when I said forgiveness perhaps I just meant I accepted his fate and wished it to be different.