It’s very early September in Michigan, and I think we’re in that final week of humidity before the air crisps and cools and the leaves begin to change. Last Tuesday, I wore jeans. And a tank top. Because this is in-between-temperature-season. It’s beautiful, and after being quarantined for a week, I’m grateful for warm weather, but the in between stuff is tough.
I had some time alone that sweaty jeans and tank top night, so I decided to explore a cemetery for a while. Weird, I know.
My dad has been dead for 13 years, my grandpa for 9. They share a burial site here in town at Sacred Heart’s Calvary Cemetery. I visited it today for the first time since my grandpa’s 21 gun solute. Though my dad was cremated, and I’m not confident where his ashes all ended up, his name is marked on the headstone with the words, “Love goes on forever.”
Since it had been 9 years since I’d been there, I didn’t remember where I was going. So I just took time to quiet my brain, put away my phone, feel the breeze through my car windows, and get out to walk around for a few moments. It didn’t take long to find. I had the vaguest memory of where it might be.
I’ve never felt the need to visit that grave; in part because there’s a lot of painful memories connected to the loss of my dad. There are still painful moments in my adult life associated with that loss. But I also just have never believed that walking to that headstone would mean that my dad could somehow hear me better.
But I knew it was in town, and it wouldn’t be warm much longer here, so I went. It didn’t feel overwhelming. It didn’t feel too sad. (Call that healing, Jesus, Prozac, or a complex cocktail of all of the above.) I allowed myself to talk to both my dad and grandpa for a while, which actually felt like a peaceful release. I didnt go into that moment expecting that.
My dad has been gone for 13 years. That’s weird for me, in a lot of ways. Grief has this way of popping up in unexpected moments. For some mysterious reason, my sister’s wedding didn’t make me as sad for that loss as the day I picked up my college graduation cap and gown. I was devastated that he couldn’t see me accomplishing that, that I couldn’t share something I was so proud of with my dad.
If you’ve lost a parent, you understand, and I see you. Every monumental moment you take after they are gone feels like there is a piece missing. There’s this really weird realization you make at some point that there have been all of these different eras and versions of yourself that have existed, but your parent never had the chance to get to know that part of you. Things that became such deep, intimate parts of my life, my dad never even knew about.
This all first started occurring to me when I watched Breaking Dawn, yes a movie in the Twilight series, in theaters for the first time. I was a hormonal teenager already, but I also had just recently lost my dad. When Charlie walked Bella down the isle, something inside of me cracked open with the realization that I would never have that moment. If marriage ever happens for me, my dad won’t be there to give me away. This motion of growing and moving forward without one of my parents has truly sucked. I wish I could tell you it gets easier, and I guess I don’t breakdown as much or as often, but it’s still sad. My dad has missed a lot of my most favorite seasons on life.
Now, here I am, 13 years later, in his hometown working full time. In the same town that he grew up in, he brought me home from the hospital to, and that I saw him in last. Somedays that just feels weird. I go to church with several people who would have grown up with him. One of my cousins that I see every Sunday is the same age that my dad would be. That’s weird.
There’s a lot that I could keep rambling about here because the grieving process is complex and so individualized. I guess the universal piece that’s sticking with me today is how strange it all is. I know it’s something people do in movies, and some people in real life do it often, but to me, there is something weird about wondering up to a chunk of stone in a field of other carved stones to talk to my dad who has been gone for more of my life than he was alive.
There was also something beautiful about it. There was something beautiful about the idea that maybe my grandpa and my dad both have been watching each era, that they know the people I have loved and each person I have become. Maybe my grandpa already knows and loves the little “runt” that my niece is, and maybe Dad and Grandpa both love listening to me brag about her. I still get very sad thinking about my dad never having the chance the meet Freyja, but in a way, that sadness is a beautiful reminder itself. That sadness means I love and adore my niece. It means I still have love for my dad. And what a privilege that ability and capacity to love is.
I acknowledge that this is both beautiful and weird. And really I think the grieving process is a lot of that alongside the pain. It’s cliche sure, but the whole thing is a journey of discovery. It’s untangling and sitting in difficult feelings in order to heal and evolve. Great strength and spectacular beauty rests there, in between and on the other side.
So if you’ve lost a parent, or you are grieving a loss today, I’m with you. You aren’t alone, and I am praying that you find that healing, peace, strength, and beauty. I hope you take a moment today to remember something happy you shared with that loved one and maybe consider passing something positive they left with you on into the world today.
You are truly and deeply loved.
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