Embrace your grief, for there your soul will grow.
Carl Jung
It has been nearly two months since my dad died.
Two months of settling back into the routine, two months of picking up the threads of my life. Two months of letting the silt sift to the bottom.
Some days I live in a fog, caught up in my thoughts of him, unable to pull myself away from his final days.
On my walk this morning, the gardenias and laurel and carolina jasmine permeate the air. But the scents are almost too much, the display a bit too showy.
It is a riot of color that feel slightly overblown to me.
But the hydrangeas, I concede, are dazzling.
When looked at closely, they reveal a multitude of shades of blue. From dusky pale to blueberry to almost navy.
And there is a whole world within these tiny petals of blue.
Bright, deep, deeper.
And I look at them and think that I will always see blue against blue.
I will always feel the everyday sadnesses against the heavier grief for my dad.
When he died, it was a holy time. My sisters and I sat with him and saw him move from life into death. Everything was stripped down to a final exhale. We were moving through moments that felt gilded by eternity. Nothing felt as essential as this.
Because he was dying, he was leaving us.
And now here, in the everyday, how does that scene fit in with anything?
So I go through my days in a fugue state, questioning, unable to let go of the images, but also forced to move on.
People say that you need to process grief, or that there is a formula that takes you through the whole thing. But I’m not so sure about that.
I think this grief walks with me.
This grief overlays all of my days.
The memories of him stick beneath my eyelids as I squint against the sun.
I don’t want to lose them.
It is important to honor them, to not let them go. If I push them down or try to forget, I am losing a part of the relationship with Dad.
Sorrow, remembrance, getting on with my life, yes, but still holding him close.
And I can’t help but think that he would have wanted it this way – me waxing poetic like crazy and always keeping him close.
Writing it down, but being grateful in the present.
Grief and gratitude.
Dad didn’t live to see this Summer, but I know that if he had, he would have described to me the splendor of the colorful mountain vista from his gazebo.
We would have shared the hydrangea view.
And here it is Friday, the day I always spoke with him on the phone.
And so I will sink down into the blue, without him – into the deepest, truest shade. And I’ll meditate on the alchemy of hyacinth and heartbreak.
And I will grow, and I will learn to heal, and I won’t ever forget.
honeybees & reveries 