Baptized by Grief: Lingering September
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
–Khalil Gibran
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
September 27th is the hardest day of the year for me. It’s the day my father died, so consequently I feel both closer to him on this day and much further away. My loss is not unique–except to me–but I believe I have learned so much from it over the last three years. I always feel as though I cocoon myself throughout September and emerge on the other side with a greater understanding of the love I have for my dad and the complexity around navigating his death without drowning in the maelstrom of heartache.
In this essay, I delve into the complex emotions surrounding this loss, including my personal journey facing my keen fear of death, isolation, and the inevitable passage of time.
My love for him will always be there, as will my grief, but I am learning to weave it throughout my life.
And that’s the truth about grief: loss gets integrated, not overcome. k
— Megan Devine, It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok
I was almost always afraid of three things when I was younger:
- The dark
- Spiders and bugs
- …and Death
These fears lasted well into adulthood for me and my fear of death was prompted by five family losses in a row during college, culminating in the death of my stepfather, Gary, in 2003, which was particularly devastating to me. Prior to these years, I had rarely given death a passing thought, because in my young, immature mind it was reserved for “old people” who had lived very full lives and could go on to whatever was next satisfied with their experiences, not 48-year-olds with kids and an enthusiasm for life. I had not yet been touched by a deeply profound loss, so to lose a parent at the end of that run of deaths, especially as a young adult… I was wholly unprepared for navigating the aftermath and became desperately afraid of dying.
I was suddenly aware of my mortality and decided if I had a choice, I’d choose to live forever, because the fear of the dying without knowing what comes next was altogether more than I could bear. I was afraid of not living to see what happens next in this world. The idea that it all just stops still gives me a cold chill in my bones, and helps me understand why some people find comfort in religion, because it’s a connection to their past and their future.
I’m agnostic and I don’t know what happens after death, if there is an “after” (I certainly hope and have to believe there is), or if everything just goes black upon death. A void of Nothing, the scariest of all. The Nothing was coming for me just as it threatened the characters in The Neverending Story. Surely our souls are not just… gone, right? Because life feels so much bigger to me than a corporeal body with two feet planted firmly on soil.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped being afraid of the dark (well, mostly… I have some theories on sensitivity to the “other side” that perhaps heightened certain fears when I was a kid).
I will never get over my fear of spiders and bugs, excepting tarantulas and only because they are fuzzy.
But I’m no longer afraid of death.
At some point, I realized that living forever would become lonely. And as I’ve lost loved ones, I find myself yearning for the propitious Next because I want to see them again. I’ve often said that I don’t feel like my dad is really “gone”; rather, he is in some other dimension, almost close enough to touch if I could just figure out how to reach him, impatiently waiting for all of us to catch up with him so he can show us around.
And–at the very least–if there truly is nothing after this life, the Black Nothing will be a welcome relief from the loneliness of losing the really important people. I no longer want to live forever. Because it’s the span of time without them that is scary. Not death.
September is now always laden with memories and emotions for me. Today, it has been three years since my dad died and it’s honestly hard to believe or comprehend that this much time has already passed, because it simultaneously feels like ages ago and yesterday. Time becomes muddled with this weird juxtaposition. Sometimes I still stop and boggle at the idea that he isn’t here and the world no longer gets to benefit from his good humor, kindness, and creativity. I can apparently still be shocked by this aging revelation and somehow I doubt that shock ever really goes away.
Sometimes I look in the mirror just to see his eyes again.
I was so afraid of making it to this point, this ‘it’s been years now’ thing because: 1) I feel guilty for continuing to lead a happy, successful life without him, even though I know that is exactly what he wanted for me; and 2) it means I’ve lived this long without him already.
I recently had a conversation with my stepmom about surviving your parents’ deaths when you’re young. She was in her 30s when she lost her dad and sister and has now lived nearly 40 years without them, and almost 25 without her mom, my step-grandma who passed away during my freshman year of college. She faced a similar realization: that she had decades without them ahead of her. While I was only 23 when my stepdad died, I hadn’t yet linked the stretch of years ahead of me without him to his passing; instead, I only developed a fear of dying. Now, though… I have a new appreciation and sympathy for my little sister, who not only lost her father the day after she turned 19 but has now lived more of her life without him than with him.
I was (“only”) 40 when my dad died and it’s unthinkable to fathom that I still have potential decades in front of me without his wisdom and guidance. It’s… scary. And lonely. And all those other grief-feelings that happen as time quite literally marches on without him.
It’s the span of time without them that is scary.
And will I forget what he sounds like? I’m afraid of that, too. Sometimes I see someone that looks so much like him, or has his mannerisms, and my heart skips. Until I remember that he is no longer here and if there does happen to be an After, I still have to wait a long time to get there so I can see him again.
It’s the span of time without them that is scary.
The irony is not lost on me that my fear of death has been replaced by a fear of living a long life. Make no mistake, I do want to live a long and happy life, and I am. It’s full and rich and promising, and I enjoy it very much. It’s just the doing-it-without-certain-loved-ones part that occasionally makes me sad and anxious. When he died, I wrote that the death of your parents is something you expect to experience simply due to the natural order of life but is a rather abstract concept until it happens to you.
Most of my circle still has both parents; my own mother still has both of hers. None of them understands this kind of grief, not really. But since his death, I’ve had several other friends who have lost parents for the first time, and I find myself reaching out to them, because facing it when you are younger than you should be, before it’s “supposed” to happen, is a lonely experience in and of itself. I also reach out because it helps me, too. It’s not just the loss; it’s the losing and feeling like there is no one else on this earth who can hold your hand in recognition, hug you, and say, “Yes, it sucks. It’s hard. It sucks. You’ll never get over it but you’ll learn how to integrate it. It really, really sucks.” It’s feeling like you aren’t given space for your Grief as people expect you to abide by some artbitrary timeline, and knowing that Grief will forever be a passenger now… sometimes (often) silent, but always there.
It’s the loneliness when the people in your life offer well-meant but misguided platitudes such as “He’s in the arms of God now.” or “At least he’s no longer suffering.” Or they try to correlate your loss with their “much-lesser experience”, whether it’s a rift with a family member to whom they’ve stopped talking, or the death of a beloved pet. And this is not criticizing them or diminishing what they have gone through; in fact, the largest part of me feels relief they don’t understand because it means they’ve never had to experience it.
“We’ve all fumbled for words, knowing no words can ever make things right. No one can win: grieving people feel misunderstood, and friends and family feel helpless and stupid in the face of grief. “ — Megan Devine, It’s Ok That You’re Not Ok
It’s the isolation you feel when there is no one who understands your grief–and the injustice of it. It’s as if you’re on a deserted island, Population: You. And you stand there, alone but for the sand and trees, while you wait for the storm to pass, wondering if and when you’ll see them again as you are baptized by a tsunami of longing and despair crashing upon your shores.
Even as others who also loved your person stand on their own islands, feeling cut off and alone, fervently wishing they could turn back time.
It’s knowing that, despite years and years and years passing, the specter of Grief can and will sneak up and grab you by the throat when you least expect it, choking you and crushing your windpipe, to remind you of all the time that has passed and all the time yet remaining.
Because it’s the span of time without them that is actually the scariest of all.
Not the dark. Not spiders. Not even death.
Time. And the unknown.
Sometimes I look back on pictures of my father and I wonder if he would have done anything differently had he known his death date. Wouldn’t we all? After all, he died reluctantly–even recalcitrantly–not yet ready to stop because he still had so much of life he wanted to experience. Perhaps he would have retired earlier. But I like to think nothing would have changed for him because he met each day with unwavering positivity and boundless energy. I’m uncertain how it could have improved beyond that.
September is always the longest, loneliest month for me now. As September 27th approaches, Time seems to slow down, as if it desperately requires my acknowledgment that it is in control, not me. A constant reminder that so much of life is luck and simply what we make of the time we’re given. Because it stops for no one, and we never know how much of it we have.
As Billy Joe Armstrong says about his own father’s death:
“Like my father’s come to pass
–Billie Joe Armstrong, Green Day
[Three] years has gone so fast
Wake me up when September ends.”