Louisville, Part II

This photograph of my mother and me was taken in 1982.  I was thirty years old and she was fifty-five.  I was pregnant with my second child.  A few months later, she died one morning of a heart attack.

It has taken the death of my father for the fact that I didn't really know my mom to slap me in the face.

My youngest sister and I took the trip to Louisville to see what we could find out about her.  I can't say it better than I said it to her friend, Lucy, in my thank you note to her:

August 28, 2012

Dearest Lucy,

When I talked to Nan [another sister] the Wednesday before we left for Louisville, she said, “Ask Lucy what Mom was like.”  I laughed—it seemed so vague—but that was really what we all wanted to know.  What was our mother like?

You told us this weekend.  She was kind and fun and everyone loved her.  She and my dad had their problems, but she never wanted to hurt him.  She looked after you when you moved to Carolina Beach and needed a friend. And you returned the favor when she needed a friend:  you checked on her often and finally paved the way for her to go to Fellowship Hall.  She suffered when her sister and mother died. She thought my dad was a good catch. She was vibrant and had a great personality.  She was there when people needed her.

I feel as though I am mourning her loss a second time.  I didn’t understand her at all, and wasn’t always very kind to her.  Kids act like that, I know, but it must have been very painful for her.  I wish I had known her as you knew her, had had more time with her, had seen her as I see you with your grandchildren, spending time at the holidays and in the summers. 

I wish I could tell her I’m sorry, that now I understand.  I understand not just because I’m a mother too, a wife with an imperfect marriage, a person who has suffered loss and knows that grief lasts a long time.  I wish I could say I understand the kind of pain that drives a person to the bottom of a liquor bottle, and the same pain that you can’t avoid once you give up the booze.  I would love to say I’m sorry I ganged up on her with my siblings and with my dad and regret that we teased her, that I could tell her that I loved her laugh and her ready smile.  I wish I could say “thank you” like I mean it.

I know that had she lived to be eighty-something, she would have been an elegant woman, just like you are, that she would still welcome Melissa [Lucy's daughter] to her home as you welcomed us into yours, that she would have lived every day of her life just as you do.  She would have been a doting grandmother.

Thank you for your graciousness, your honesty, your friendship with my mom through all those years, for sharing your knowledge of Louisville with us. I know we will see each other again before thirty years have passed!  I’m so glad we made the trip.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Love,

Mamie

We asked Lucy some hard questions and she honestly answered them. It was nice to look at the answers with adult eyes; we felt totally non-judgmental.  We learned a lot about her relationship with my dad--not from his perspective, which was rose-colored to say the least--but from someone in whom my mom confided her deepest secrets.

I know my mother better today than I did the day she died.  And as I said, along with understanding comes regret. But it also comes with a whole lot of gratitude. 

Power of Words

You've heard this all before on this blog, but I've been typing up some essays from Nancy Peacock's writing class at Meredith.  This was written from a prompt, "I believe in the power of words...."  How would you finish that sentence?

I believe in the power of words to heal.  When I write notes to people, I often sit and meditate for a few minutes about their illness, their dying loved one, their love for each other, the day they were born.  I put my pen to the paper as soon as I’m finished with the meditation; I want my words to matter.

            I choose a card carefully. Sometimes it is one of my photo cards. A photograph of a place we’ve been together, one of the sky or water for a somber message.  A photograph of a billboard with a funny saying for someone who needs cheering up.  A shop window with funky wigs for a friend undergoing chemo for cancer. 

            I might buy a card at the book store or a craft fair—one that is a collage with a meaningful quote.  Sometimes I go to my workroom and make a card using beautiful paper or stamps my daughter has carved.

            I know the power of words to heal because of the ones that come to my own mailbox when I need them.  Words from friends who let me know that they are thinking of me, that they remember my birthday or my anniversary.  I save the good ones and the ones from my children with their love scribbled across the page of a card they chose just for me.

            Yesterday I sent a card to a friend whose sister died last year.  Her sister’s birthday is the same day as my father’s.  “I will take a few minutes on Friday to think of you and your family.  I hope you will be remembering the happy times with your sister, and that those memories will comfort you.” 

            I wonder as I write this if anyone made a note when they read his obituary that Friday would be my father’s ninetieth birthday.  Are they right now thinking of me as they sort through their card collection or bend the corners of those at the store, looking for one that says just the right words, words that will bring a smile to my face or a tear to my eye?

            Will a card come tomorrow as I remember his last birthday, how I went to the grocery store and ordered a cake—white with red roses—and had the woman write, “Happy 88^th Birthday, Dad;” how my dad was in a coma from which he never woke up; how the five of us, his children, waited, watching his labored breath, tense, irritable, unbearably sad, trying to figure out if staying or leaving or whispering the right words in his ear would give him permission to die; how two days later he breathed a ragged breath and died with a tiny smile on his face?

            How comforting it would be to be remembered with words thoughtfully penned on a carefully chosen card.

            

Old is Made New

I just got back from Greensboro doing some family business and while I was there, my brother and I rode by my dad's old house. They had done so many improvements to the outside of the house: an iron fence, a potting shed, french doors to the den. They had painted the outside. There was a paper tulip on the front door, obviously made by a child. Topiaries framed the porch. The yard was green and the driveway had been power-washed. The house looked lived in again.

The house is being loved by another family, and we're moving on with our lives without my dad. A year and three-quarters later I still think of him every day, still miss him like crazy. But seeing his house alive again with that family cheered me up.

(My brother took the photo. Thanks, Bro. <3)

Keeping Up

A few months ago, my sisters and I sorted through the things my father saved for us in a big trunk. We made piles for the five of us. Report cards, letters, articles, scrapbooks. Drawings by our children. As we piled it all up, something became ridiculously apparent: My pile was very, very tall. And from there it became less and less until my youngest sister was able to fit hers in a large baggie.

Today I was looking for a photograph to post on Facebook of my daughter's birth thirty years ago. I pulled out her baby book. There were all the details of her length and weight, every present she received at every shower, her first words. All neatly gathered in the "Baby's Book." And I know that there isn't a book like that for my other daughters. There are photographs, lots of them, but the baby book went the way of time alone with my husband when the two of them came along.

I wish I had kept up my detailed record-keeping. Some people do (my sister is one) but I just let the time slip by without documenting the firsts and the dates.

I'm sure if I were to go back and look at my pictures, I'd find that there are many years when only a few photographs were taken. Important events like graduations and recitals got noticed, birthday parties and holidays were over-photographed. And there might be a few looks and attitudes, outfits and behaviors that are better off ignored through the camera lens.

I remember the over-arching themes of their lives and I've saved lots of artwork and a few report cards. I've got their letters and application letters and essays. Newspaper articles with their picture yellow in a cabinet. A few outfits remain in their drawers--t-shirts I think they'll want though they say they don't--clothes they'll eventually have to go through and decide about. Baby quilts and cross-stitched nursery rhymes are stacked in the closet.

There will be more than enough for them to go through. I just wish there was more. Our memories are short, and we are short-sighted about what we'll want to remember.

Time Goes By

In June I ran over my cat and made it through Father's Day and my father's birthday without him. June 10 made twenty-eight of my mom's birthdays since she died. Today is my friend Catherine's birthday, and her family is celebrating without her too.


My youngest daughter and I shopped for wedding dresses and talked venues and caterers and guest lists.

My middle daughter's cat got run over and died.

My oldest daughter is working things through.

I attended a week-long workshop with the inimitable Zelda Lockhart where I explored some of the family lore in fiction. I visited my friends in Oriental and made a sale of some of my prints and cards to one of the local galleries. I submitted more of my stories and went to my writing groups. I hurt someone.

I went to my boat one weekend, relaxed and did some summer cleaning, had dinner with friends. They'd missed me and I was so happy to be with them.

On July 1, I had a photography exhibit entitled, "The American Experience" with four other people. I took down a photograph of my deceased cat and replaced it with a photograph of a boat in Oriental Harbor. I dedicated my photographs to my dad. Some of his last words were, "I love this country so much."

I'm putting together some amazing writing workshops and already have people signing up for October and February of 2012. The one with Jan Phillips is full and people are still calling.

I've seen some things that appeared to be signs, like this cloud (what was the earth thinking?):



and this word on my floor (which a friend said is the Sanskrit word for "fear"):



I've spent too much time on Facebook and reality TV shows and not enough time on the stacks of books and movies that stare at me every time I walk by.

I've been to my home town and put flowers on my parents' graves, met with the accountant, visited with my brother.

A red-headed woodpecker eats sunflower seeds and finches of every color fight for perch at the thistle seed. In about a week I'll have a jillion tomatoes.

Live goes on.

My Easter Week

This could almost be one of my "Week in Pictures" posts, but I feel compelled to say a few words. It's been quite a few days.

Last Saturday, many tornadoes ripped through our state. For the first time since Hurricane Fran picked our street as Ground Zero, I experienced fear over the weather. I took the cats and went downstairs to an interior closet (in Fran we had to go to our dirt basement). I was so thankful I had bought a battery operated radio as we lost power an hour or so before the storm actually hit. My husband was a few blocks from this cemetery:




We were safe, thank goodness, but many others didn't fare so well. It's a reminder of our helplessness in the face of the weather.

In her usual schizo way, Mother Nature showed her beautiful side this week too. We spent a couple of days in Southport. The weather wasn't the greatest, but when you end a day looking at this, it's hard to whine.



I got up early this morning and drove to Greensboro. The choir was wearing new robes, thanks to the wonderful donations made to the church after my dad died. We had a moment of silence in his memory, and the choir members showed us after the service that each of the robes has a tag in it that says, "In memory of Ken Lewis." We were touched.



At my dad's house, everything is being readied for the estate sale. In the room where the dining room table groaned at Christmas and Easter, a card table holds dishes and silver that we didn't take. The kitchen counters are covered with pots and pans that were used to prepare his famous potato salad and pimento cheese, ham, turkey, beans. Pound cakes and pies. It's sad.

And saddest of all are the things he collected that we don't want. On this table there are newspapers announcing the end of WWII, Kennedy's death and other important events in history. He wanted us to want them, I guess, but we just can't take everything.



There's the high chair that my mother bought when my daughter was born. All of the granddaughters sat in in at one time or another. We're not taking that either.



And then there's the room that I can hardly bear to enter: his bedroom. The bed is dissembled, against a wall in another bedroom. His television and stereo lie in pieces on the floor. The books he was going to read have been shelved in the den. And the thing that is the very hardest is the sight of his clothes and shoes, neatly hung and lined up, ready for another day of delivering meals or singing in the choir or going to work.



The next time I go in the house, strangers will be looking through his things. Next will be the time when I walk in the empty house. God it's hard to say goodbye.

Saying Good-bye

I'm a bit reluctant to say good-bye to 2010. Sure, I'm glad to have the cancer treatments behind me. I'm glad we're not worried about business. And new years equal new opportunities and new possibilities.

But to tell you the truth, I feel sad to say good-bye too, because it feels like a farewell to my dad. Tomorrow his death will be "last year", the final days of his life will have taken place "last year", the time we spent together will have ended "last year".

I looked over my calendar for 2010 as I noted birthdays and anniversaries on 2011's. I remembered the night we went to see Joshua Bell, the day I went to Greensboro to see Porgy and Bess, the workshop that was interrupted by his final trip to the hospital. I saw his birthday noted in red, and thought about going into Harris Teeter, asking for a cake that said, "Happy 88th Birthday, Dad", knowing that he would never see it, or see another birthday for that matter.

I'm going to say it now: "Good-bye, Dad. Last year was tough, and losing you was the hardest part. But I'm going to be facing toward the future now, taking you with me in my heart."

Okay. I'm looking forward to looking back on 2010. All peace and happiness to you in 2011, and may your new days be filled with the love of friends and family.

Rabbit, rabbit.

Thanksgiving Weekend

As I said on Facebook: "This was the oddest Thanksgiving I've ever spent. I liked it. And I didn't."

My children don't come home for Thanksgiving because they'll be here for Christmas in a few weeks and it's such a terrible weekend for traveling. Usually we go to Greensboro to be with my dad. We've done this almost every year since we quit going to my grandparents' house in Carolina Beach. There's lots of food and family.

But this year, our tether has been severed, and my dad isn't around to host us. So with my kids away and my dad gone, we decided to do something totally off the wall. We took the boat to Georgetown, South Carolina.

It took us all day on Thursday to get there. Most of the leaves had fallen but there was color here and there among the brown trunks and the evergreens.



We pulled into a little creek off the waterway for lunch. It was beautiful and peaceful. The weather was warm and we enjoyed the sun and sustenance.



Thursday night we ate turkey, collard greens, and the last of our garden squash. It felt so strange, thinking about this day being one that we usually spend with so many people. I got a little melancholy, so we decided to watch a few episodes of Season 1 of the Showtime show, "Weeds". I'm hooked, and it did take my mind off the sadness. Friday we rode our bikes into Georgetown, had lunch, window shopped, and browsed the wonderful indy bookstore. As we headed back to the boat it started raining. Rainy afternoons are great for napping, so we read and slept.



Saturday morning we started the seven-hour trek back to Southport. The seagulls saw us off.



It was another warm, beautiful day. I took lots and lots of photographs, including some amazing water reflections. The waterway is so scenic. And of course, there were lots of reminders of my dad.



I had such mixed feelings about this weekend. But I couldn't have asked for more in the way of a beautiful distraction. For that I am grateful.

Gail Caldwell's Book

Last weekend I read three books. Today I want to talk about the book, Let's Take the Long Way Home by Gail Caldwell. It is the story of Gail's friendship with Caroline Knapp, author of Drinking: A Love Story. The book follows Caroline's battle with cancer and Caldwell's care for her and subsequent sense of loss at her death.

At the beginning of the book, I felt that Caldwell was being self-absorbed, but as I read on and looked closer at their burgeoning relationship, I fell in love with the book. Toward the end I was underlining passages and turning down pages.

This in particular sticks in my mind:

"Suffering is what changes the endgame, changes death's mantle from black to white. It is a badly lit corridor outside of time, a place of crushing weariness, the only thing large enough to bully you into holding the door for death."

I've read this at least twenty times, and its profundity is never diminished. Because I, sitting in the hospital with my dad one of the nights after his first brain surgery, wished for his death. I couldn't bear to see his pain and defeat and depression. And I watched the heart monitor rise and fall and thought, "Please flat-line. Please let's end this right now."

I haven't felt exactly guilty for thinking this, but I did feel uneasy about wishing for my dad's death. Suffering changed the endgame, though, just like Caldwell says, and I welcomed death into the room.

A Poem and A Dream

Last night I spent time in my creative space making cards for some friends. I had the music going and felt very peaceful. It was nice.

As I headed upstairs, I glanced at a book I bought at a used book store entitled, Our World. It is photographs by Molly Malone Cook with text by Mary Oliver. I bought it after a workshop with Zelda Lockhart. She suggested that we take a few words from a poem and free-write on them. I love writing from photographs, so the book seemed just the perfect prompt provider.

I opened the book to this poem:

Walking Home from Oak-Head

There is something
about the snow-laden sky
in winter
in the late afternoon

that brings to the heart elation
and the lovely meaninglessness
of time.
Whenever I get home - whenever -

somebody loves me there.
Meanwhile
I stand in the same dark peace
as any pine tree,

or wander on slowly
like the still unhurried wind,
waiting,
as for a gift,

for the snow to begin
which it does
at first casually,
then, irrepressibly.

Wherever else I live -
in music, in words,
in the fires of the heart,
I abide just as deeply

in this nameless, indivisible place,
this world,
which is falling apart now,
which is white and wild,

which is faithful beyond all our expressions of faith,
our deepest prayers.
Don't worry, sooner or later I'll be home.
Red-cheeked from the roused wind,

I'll stand in the doorway
stamping my boots and slapping my hands,
my shoulders
covered with stars.
~ Mary Oliver ~

My dad came to me in a dream last night. We walked around his buildings and talked and he gave his approval of some of the things we had decided to do since he died. In one of the scenes of the dream, there was a movie of us as young children showing on the wall.

The poem or the thoughts of those for whom I was making cards - I'm not sure what brought him into my night wandering. But this morning I did feel comforted.

My Dad and the USofA

It doesn't take much right now to bring me to tears about my dad's death. Dealing with the surgeries and upcoming treatment, photographs, music. The song, "The Weary Kind" from the movie "Crazy Heart" does it every time. During the days when we were exhausted, spending hour after hour by my dad's hospital bed, I played this song every time I got in the car. These lyrics particularly speak to my state of mind:

Somehow this don’t feel like home anymore

And this ain’t no place for the weary kind
And this ain’t no place to lose your mind
And this ain’t no place to fall behind
Pick up your crazy heart and give it one more try

The last time my dad went into surgery, as I may have said before, he told my sister what he wanted at his funeral. And I keep coming back to one thing he requested. He said, "I want them to play 'God Bless America'." And then he started crying. "I love this country so much."

Of course he was a member of the Greatest Generation, and he did love all things American. He never understood why I would buy a German or Japanese car. He loved war movies and was proud of his time in the service. He criticized the government with care, and never hesitated to remind us that we lived in the greatest country in the world. He believed the US was the peacekeeper and caretaker of the world.

We buried him with military honors, draped his coffin in the American flag. It was folded by a military guard and presented to my brother, his only son.

Back at his house, after the funeral, I noticed a small American flag by the chair he had been using after he broke his hip. It tore me up.

When I get in my car, I can turn off the music. I can ignore the photographs and don't have to play the voice mail where he tells me that Joshua Bell is on PBS and to be sure to watch it. But almost everywhere I go, there are American flags and I'm reminded of my dad and the way he loved our country.

Photographs

I spent the weekend in the darkroom developing the old negatives from my dad's house. I explained the development process in this post.

When I have arrived at the perfect exposure setting and time, I can run several pictures rather quickly. The minutes-in-solution times can be synchronized so I'm moving the photographs through in production. It's easy to get caught up in running several because I'm so pleased to be producing the actual picture.

At home, I will have anywhere from five to seven prints of a photograph. Then the question becomes, "What do I do with all the prints?" This has led me to examine why we take pictures in the first place.

1. We want to remember an event: who was there, what the venue looked like, what the activities were.
2. We want to document something, for instance a house we are building for a client.
3. We want to measure a life through the years.
4. We want to capture something beautiful, grotesque, intriguing.

And other reasons.

In developing these old negatives, I have other motivation.

Mostly I want to see emotion in people's faces. There is an interaction between the photographer and the subject. I've seen the happiness and irritation of my subjects many times. In a picture of my mom and dad, both of them impeccably dressed (Easter?), she is smiling broadly, he is not. What does this tell me about them? Is it something about their whole relationship or was it just a second of their life? Who took the picture? In an oddly parallel photo, my brother and sister are in dress-up clothes. She has on high heels and he is a cowboy with a play guitar. She is smiling broadly; he is straight-faced.

There we are on the steps of our house; why is my next-to-the-youngest sister not in the photo? In another photo I look about four years old and I stand apart from my sister as she sits in a rocking chair holding my infant brother, my mother protectively close at hand. I look straight at the camera. What am I thinking?

Pictures are chronicles not just of our lives, but our relationships, interests, happy and sad events. I'm fascinated by what I'm discovering in a dark room.

New York Trip

This weekend we met our daughters in New York. It was a wonderful weekend with mostly cool and sunny weather. Usually on returning from a trip, I would call my dad and tell him all about it. He would love hearing the details. So this post is what I would tell him if I could.

First I would tell him about the view from the hotel, where every morning the sun came up, touching the tops of the high rise buildings. And about the sign that said, "Now more than ever, you need to be world wise."



We would laugh about the petty arguments and lengthy discussions we had about where to eat and shop. I'd tell him about what I learned: that we really don't have to spend every minute together for it to be a successful weekend. I would mention the museum where the exhibit consisted of things made from feathers and bones and dandelions. And the mall where a nude giant man and woman graced the lobby.



I would talk about the city lights and the fast-moving cars and people, the crowded streets and the alluring and repulsive smells of the city.



We met the girls' boyfriends, and we liked them, I'd say. Each well-suited to the daughter's personality. All three boyfriends are kind and good to them. He would know that a parent always wants the best for their kids.



Althought he never read this blog, I would talk about this post where I speculated about how my daughters' apartments looked, and how they were just as I imagined them.





I wish you could have been with us, I'd say, when we went to see the play Fela! The dancers and music were out of this world, and the story was disturbing (yes, children, it was disturbing!) and he'd say he bet he would have liked it. You need to go with us next time, Dad. Yeah, I will, he'd say, but we both knew he wouldn't go.



I'd tell him about the beautiful cathedral we went in...



...and that I lit a candle just for him.



At the end of the conversation, I'd tell him how hard it is to say good-bye to everybody after a nice weekend, and he'd know just what I meant.

Losing Memories. And Finding Them.

(Yeah, I know the photo is a little crooked - my dad took it!)

The other day I was trying to remember the name of my first grade teacher. I couldn't pull it out of my brain. I realized something: my dad is the only one who might have known the answer.

So it seems, that along with all the things I forgot to ask him about our relatives--like who are those people in the pictures in the trunk, why did you save this obituary, tell me about receiving this honor--there are a few things I needed to know about me that are now gone. The one person who remembers my childhood intimately is dead.

This gave me a very forlorn feeling.

I was talking to my youngest sister about this, telling her I had tried to find the teacher's name on the internet and couldn't. She said, "I know where you might can find it. There's probably a report card in the trunk from first grade."

I haven't looked yet, but it might be there. And I'm beginning to understand the value to a person's descendants of leaving behind papers and letters and pictures. Regardless of whether that particular teacher's name will be retrieved, I know that my dad was thinking ahead when he put each and every thing in that trunk. Thinking about a time when I might need to know something and he wouldn't be around to answer.

Something to Say

One of my faithful readers said she was worried because I haven't posted lately. I'm glad she missed me.

I haven't written because I felt that writing about my dad would be boring to you, and yet everything else seems too trivial to talk about. I'm busy, along with my siblings, with the business of the estate and cleaning out my dad's house and all the emotions surrounding that. I can go days without crying and then spend a day trying not to burst into tears at anything and everything.

Many times, I'll be crying, really crying hard, and the sound of my crying makes me stop. It feels foreign. I'm not familiar with it like I am the sounds of my voice or my laugh. That's good, isn't it?

Two months ago things seemed very scary. My dad was in the hospital with the broken hip, I had a questionable lump in my breast, and our business was in a very precarious situation. In their own ways, all of these things have been resolved. My father has died, but isn't suffering and never had to go a nursing home. He really lived until he died. My breast cancer has been removed and the next steps don't seem too scary. Our business is stable and we're busy. In the midst of the sad news of my dad's death, there is the comfort of friends and a new closeness between my siblings. There is the kindness of nurses and doctors. There is the support of my husband and children.

I see a picture of my dad or hear his voice on my answering machine and I just ache that I'll not see him again in this lifetime. But when the strangeness of the sound of my crying stops me, I take time to give thanks for where I am right now.

What's Important

I've spent the past two days cleaning out my dad's office and some of his house with one of my sisters and my brother. The box you see is just one of several boxes of cards and photographs and newspaper articles that my dad saved. Cards from us, articles about us, photographs taken when we all got together or sent to him.

In the cabinets, we found several such boxes of things that he got when his mother died, when my other grandparents died, when my great-aunt died. And in them, the same things: photographs, articles, cards, lists of people who brought food or made memorial donations. We've made a decision to throw a lot of it away, especially legal papers about things that happened in the past. Things like photographs of people we don't know and minutes from church meetings.

It has brought home to me that what means something to me, what I'm saving, the cards my children sent my dad, the church bulletins that he put in a drawer because one of the children was christened that Sunday, the newspaper pictures or articles about our family, may not mean anything to my kids. When I die, when my husband dies, they may go through the boxes of things I'm packing to bring home, look at everything perfunctorily, and decide they don't need to keep those things anymore.

It has made me ask how long something carries meaning for a family. Two generations or three, four at the most. There have been a lot of things I've thrown away fairly easily, but some of it I need to keep. For my children to keep or throw away.

I will say that the most meaningful things we've found are letters. And I wonder what people will find meaning in now when emails are the main form of communication and we delete them after we read them.

It has been a rough couple of days, but I've learned a lot about what I think is important. I appreciate my dad keeping all those things, so I could decide.

Place of refuge

I never lived in the house that my father lived in when he died. The family moved there forty years ago, when I was a freshman in college.

During the two weeks that we stayed there last month, I made one of the bedrooms into a refuge. I brought my computer, my IPod, a few books to read, my journal. My husband brought me one of his copies of The Runner's Bible, and I put it on the bedside table. I had a fan to drown all the noises of the house. I hung my clothes in the closet with our old prom dresses and my mom's furs, and wedding presents from the seventies. I put my makeup and vitamins and hair spray on the dresser. Every morning I opened the shades to let the sun in, and every night I closed them for privacy.

When I would get home at night from the hospital, I would be totally buzzed. Literally vibrating. Tired, sad, worn down to the bone, I would enter that room. The music would be playing, the fan would be blowing cool air. In bed I would meditate or read or whatever it took to calm down.

This room that had never been mine became mine so completely that I didn't want anyone to come in. I was as protective of that space as a teenage girl with a room full of secrets. It became my room in a house where I'd never had a room.

I'm grateful that I had that safe space during such a troubled time.

Re-alignment

I guess you noticed the new look on my blog. I tried it on for size and now, though not completely happy with it, can't figure out how to get the old look back.

This is what my life feels like right now. There's been a change and I can't make it go back to how it was before. Every morning I get up and I think, My father is dead. In my mind's eye, I see him coming in from my driveway in his flannel shirt and corduroy pants, limping a little, carrying pimento cheese or oranges or a DVD he's made for me. I listen to his voice on my voice mail saying, "You don't need to call me back. Talk to you soon. Love ya," over and over. The church calls and asks could donations go to new choir robes and I remember the funeral, his seat in the choir draped with his robe, and I lose it.

People say, "He had a good life" and "You're so lucky he didn't have to go to a nursing home" and I know this is true, but I want to scream back that that isn't a consolation. I'm in this little cocoon; I don't want to talk to people about him or have visitors bring things.

My dad wasn't perfect. There were years when I was so irritated by him that it took a great deal of control to be nice to him. But in the past few years he was the father I've always wanted: kind, wise, compassionate, gentle. And that's hard to give up.

I won't belabor my sadness here. Others' mourning is not interesting. But I'm just going to say this and be done with it: I miss him. Damnit.

Being Born

During the time we spent at the hospital, much of it waiting for my dad to breathe his last, a few people compared the process of dying to that of being born. Moving from a known, secure place to the unknown. Long and arduous process. Hard work.

I would say that our role seemed like coaching a birthing mother. The day my dad died, as we were around his bed, it felt as though we were moving him on his way, helping him be born into his new life. We touched him and talked to him, let him know that we loved him and that we would be all right when he left. We breathed with him, quick intakes of air that left us feeling lightheaded. And when he breathed his last big breaths punctuated by seconds of silence, we breathed big breaths too.

Another thing about the dying process that has resembled birth is that I have forgotten how painful it is to lose a loved one. Just as I've forgotten how painful it was to have a baby. It seems new, this sadness. And I'm waking at all hours of the night and as weary as if I'd been taking care of a newborn.

I'm grateful to all of you for taking this journey with me. I've felt your love and prayers and empathy and sympathy. It has helped more than you'll ever know.

Courage to Do the Right Thing

My dad died this afternoon. When it finally happened, it was quick, peaceful, and all but one of his children were there. Because I'm still processing this, I want to tell you about something else that happened today.

My sisters and I will talk to anyone. My brother has teased us incessently since we've been going to the hospital about our need to say hello to every hospital employee who has done anything for our dad. Sometimes it can be embarrassing (and ridiculous) how forward we are.

Today the five of us were eating in the local drugstore. My sisters kept staring at this one table where a man, four young girls, and two older women were eating. One sister kept saying that the man was being totally inappropriate. Another said he was creeping her out. Finally I looked over and the man had the twelve year old in his lap and had his hand up her shirt in the front. Then in the back. Then he rested it on her rear end. It was very disturbing to watch.

One of my sisters is a therapist who specializes in women who have been sexually abused. She wanted to confront the situation. We were horrified and didn't want her to get involved. She said, "God, if you want me to do something, create an opportunity." Oh sure. In the crowded drugstore there was going to be a chance to talk about this to someone in that group.

A few minutes later, we figured out that the man was the father of the girls, and the situation assumed even more importance. The father kissed one of the younger girls on the mouth, then he and the girls and one of the women left, leaving the other woman there to pay the bill. She said, "See you tomorrow," so we knew they would not be coming back in. My sister said that she was going over.

She started talking to the woman. And for about three or four minutes the woman stood, protesting slightly, but attentive to what my sister said. After it was over and the woman had left, we talked about what had been said and I was astounded at the skill with which my sister had handled the conversation.

I would not have had the skills to do what she did. But beyond that I would not have had the courage. My sister may have changed the course of that young girl's life, and that of her sisters too. I can't give her enough credit for the risk she took. Hats off to her for standing up for that child. What an example she set today.