Tidal Pool

 Life after loss is a unique experience. No- perhaps not entirely unique. But each fresh grief has its own inscape, as Wolterstorff observed in “Lament for a Son.” My mother’s death felt like a raw and tender wound, easy to chafe and renew with words poorly chosen. Those who were merely acquainted with her might puzzle over what there was to grieve. She could be vicious and vile toward those she blindly accused, or on a less personal level, she could baffle strangers by showing up miles from home without pants on. She did not have many casual acquaintances at her funeral. Those who knew her a little could sympathize with our feelings at least, but only a few such folks felt her loss - or if they did, were more focused on excusing themselves from any lingering sense of guilt over what they ought to have done or been for her than on fully accepting her absence. And those who knew her well were divided among themselves, some retreating to peace that the seeming chaos of her life had somehow found meaning in heavenly peace, others describing her life as “tormented,” and a few of us (I would include myself here as the pronoun suggests) trying to hold her legacy gently, in all its complexity: even if there were no heaven to soothe and smooth the weariness of a tragic, strange, and sharp existence, she still had her moments of unusual joy, equally fierce, and places where she touched the world with her own inimitable mark. 

Dad was different, and not just because they went so close together, almost as if he’d lost her again while they were out running errands, and she’d found someone who’d lend their phone or perhaps a police officer spoke to her, and she called him to come get her. Only this time they didn’t come home. That was Dad to a tee though. On the edges of things, out of the way in his shed or under a car or out in the garden. You always knew he was there because he’d be rumbling audibly to himself in his own world, but he blended into the background until something happened, and then he’d be the one to hook up the tow dolly and drive wherever to pick up a stranded daughter or show up daily at the nursing home with a vanilla latte for Mom. I forgot until the week before he died about the many Saturday evenings and Sunday mornings we’d spent together, just he and I or maybe both Maria and I when we were younger, going to church together while Mom found her own places to go because the vibes weren’t right. About breakfasts at Country Table with syrupy sweet hot chocolate and Belgian waffles under towers of whipped cream. About sitting in the passenger’s seat up front in the motor home playing viciously competitive alphabet games where we’d wait for miles for a tractor trailer to pass us with its reliable Q from the “air ride equipped.” He wasn’t someone who could have a deep conversation about most topics, but he was consistent and steady. And unlike Mom, who went out with pain and refusal and was the sort who’d wrestle an angel til it lamed her hip, Dad gave us permission to let him go and tried to be unobtrusive in his leave-taking too, telling us we shouldn’t fuss too much about his remains, just do whatever required the least work, he wasn’t worried about where his body ended up and in what form. He had spent his last bit of energy taking Mom’s ashes back to Lancaster. Perhaps we all asked too much of him without realizing it. Then again, we counseled him to wait in case he wanted something to keep her close, and perhaps he wanted to put all his affairs in order, being a conscientious man. He saw everyone, said his own private farewells, and then went to the hospital and only came out of it to die.

The older I get, the fewer moments of stillness I have. It’s too easy to get distracted, even without a phone close at hand. There are too many things, and they indeed, as the philosopher Smashmouth once said, start coming and they don’t stop coming. Sewing gives me a little quiet amid the noise, but it’s not a reflective silence, simply a cessation of higher order thought. Here though, it’s hard to avoid, or the avoidance of it will just sap your strength til you have to stop and look and wait until the looking becomes seeing, even if through a blur of tears. 

I think of all the things I will forget, given time. The feel of Dad’s callouses. The sound of Mom’s voice, which is what I remember now more than her words. This is a last opportunity to re-experience those things while they’re fresh, and perhaps, giving them the weight of my attention, to impress them a little more deeply and hold them just a little while longer. It may be painful - it so often is when we fix in memory places and times that we cannot ever return to - but at least it will be one place where we can meet again, long after they’ve gone.