Fathers & Daughters

It's my father's memorial service and we are outdoors at Great Falls park. Dad didn't want anything fancy. He didn't want anything, as a matter of fact.  But my 7-year-old daughter asked if we could have a funeral for her Granddad, something like a goldfish burial comes to mind. 

How sweet & how wise we are as children. She has such an awareness about life (and death). Her tears flow out of her cheeks like streams. She feels things deeply whereas I keep too many layers of protection. Of what I'm protecting against, I'm never sure.

It's a brilliant day with sunshine and birds and trees blowing in a slight wind. Everyone present in the great outdoors on this glorious but sad day speaks from the heart. Some of us have written prayers, like Tess who finishes our service with The Penny Prayer. We all pass a 1962 penny around, it represents the year Dad and Mom married. I wonder how a woman goes on after losing her soul mate, married together 50 years, the absolute love of her life. We all gently touch the penny and hold it in our fingertips, and then it is tossed into the great waterfall. Back into the flow, Tess says. 

Others tell stories about fishing or walking the dogs to the river or about Dad's green thumb. He could plant anything and it would grow. Mom reads a poem she wrote for her only love, back in 1962. It is hard to watch her struggle through the tears to read the words on the yellowed paper. I admire the type, the font on the folded page, it is from an old typewriter. Poetic, after all the young couple met at work when Mom put in Dad's typewriter ribbon backward or upside down. I'm not sure exactly, stories have a way of changing and evolving and fading after so many decades. How I cling onto these stories now.

Then it is my turn. I decide to share an email exchange my father sent to me just two months before he died. 

I say thank you, Dad, and light a candle that burns until we are finished and Mom is the one to blow out the flame. I'm reminded of all the hand-written letters Dad and I wrote through the years, especially in the late 1980's and early 1990's when I was away at college or starting out on my career. All those pages of fatherly advice and words of wisdom. 

He was the smartest man I've ever known: a composer, a musician, a writer, a professor, an avid reader, a gardener, a loner, an intellectual, a critic, a complicated man, a nature lover...the only father I've known. 

He is the man who taught me to have the courage of my conviction. He also told me to let love in, when it came to me, I would know.

Here is what I read:

Arthur Armand Jannery

March 24, 1932 – July 29, 2012

May 22, 2012

 Hi Beth,

 I've just been reading a book and thought about you .... "Beth would like this, I said to myself - tell her about it!" If you haven't read The Art of Racing in The Rain, by Garth Stein, Get it! Love, Dad

May 23, 2012 

Page 162, last paragraph, is worth a reread .... and especially is page 160, paragraphs 2 and 3 .... what a great attitude!

Page 162 last graph:

It is not the end. She died that night. Her last breath took her soul, I saw it in my dream. I saw her soul leave her body as she exhaled and then she had no more needs, no more reason; she was released from her body, and, being released, she continued her journey elsewhere, high in the firmament where soul material gathers and plays out all the dreams and joys of which we temporal beings can barely conceive, all the things that are beyond our comprehension, but even so, are not beyond our attainment if we choose to attain them, and believe that we truly can. 

Page 160 graphs 2&3:

To live every day as if it has been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life...to separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful. I am. I am. That is something to aspire to...this is how I will live my life

And then I selected one more reading.

 

There should be no fear around death. Life and Death is about The Promise of Renewal.

A Poem I think Dad would have liked. The poet (Tagore) asks himself, “What will you give, when death knocks at your door?” His answer to me seems like something Dad would say. His answer displays the untroubled joy of someone who has risen above the fear surrounding death:

The fullness of life –

The sweet wine of autumn days and summer nights,

My little hoard gleaned through the years,

And hours rich with living.

That will be my gift

When death knocks at my door.

Finding Grace Again

   Regan Concord had a chance to live two lives. One was the life she thought she was supposed to live. She made it all look good on the outside. The second was one she didn’t know, yet. This was her authentic life, the one no one else owned, where she could be whatever the hell she wanted. But this realness was buried down deep. Only hitting a complete rock bottom could force Regan to start digging for the life she was meant to live.

   There are major life events that define people, moments of clarity that mark time in a new way. For Regan, her moments of there-is-no-going-back were coming. She would wear them like tattoos: before and after.

   There would forever be before the affair and after the affair. Then there was before the accident and after the accident. Before the affair, Noah, Regan’s handsome husband, an Ivy-League-educated attorney, would kiss her goodbye in the mornings. Before the accident, Regan loved inhaling her 5-year-old daughters’ hair, especially in the morning in bed together after mixing with a night of sleep. The deep scent of bed-head and Johnson’s Baby Shampoo comforted Regan, she was grateful not to have to jump out of bed at dawn to rush Grace off to childcare. They were lazy together, those two girls, sometimes watching morning TV in bed together, rereading “The Giving Tree” for the umpteenth time or talking about the day to come. School days gave the girls a more organized routine and structure to the morning, but Noah got an earlier start to try to beat the traffic.

   “Bye sweets,” Noah said. Mornings flowed together, the days blended, it was a peaceful existence.

   “Bye babe,” she yawned and rolled over, pulling Grace’s warm body closer into hers. “Dinner at 6 o’clock. If you’re going to be late again, call first.” She grabs his hand. He stands over Regan and Grace by the side of the bed. His fingers are cold.

   Regan was well aware of Boston traffic. The big dig was complete but everyday traffic jams at rush hour were commonplace, at least for Noah they were. She could never figure out how her husband always made a meeting with a CEO or a CFO on time, but was chronically late for the dinner table. She’d set the table for three, inevitably pushing dinner back to 6:30 p.m. or 7 o’clock but Grace would get cranky and have to eat. Then the phone call would come, traffic was a bitch, or there was an accident or a late meeting was called. She knew the drill. She gave up asking questions. It was never her battle to win. She should be grateful she could stay home with Grace and the bills were paid. She should be more compassionate and understanding and grateful. The evening routines got predictable, even to a Kindergartener.

   “Traffic again?” Grace asked.

   “Yes, Daddy is in traffic.”

   Regan hugged Grace tighter.

   “Daddy said to give you this,” Regan gave Grace a big bear hug.

   “Pinch and skeeze?” Grace asked.

   “That’s right, a pinch and a squeeze,” her Mom answered smiling. Then she’d kiss the tip of her little nose and let out a “honk.”

   “Honky honk honk,” Grace erupted into giggles.

   Then bath time came, then stories, then a “night night sleep tight tight” and then a chilled glass of Chardonnay after the lights were out.

   Regan knew the life of an attorney’s wife. She knew what she signed up for. The less she questioned it the better. Still, the loneliness sometimes got the best of her. She stopped waiting up for Noah. She stopped expecting anything different. His dinner plates sat alone under Saran Wrap and the dimmed kitchen chandelier. She did away with making family plans on weekends. She began going through the motions. And all this was before the affair, or at least before she had proof of his betrayal.

   “Bye,” he called to her from the hallway. “Don’t wait up.”

   “Don’t wait up?” A sick knowing feeling welled up in her gut. She did what she could do to push down her fear. She suspected what was going on, but she couldn’t say for sure. Perhaps she wasn’t ready to know. Regan delighted in keeping up appearances. This made her feel safe, protected even. If it looked good on the outside then everything must be ok. It was all a farce, but it was the life she was willing to live, at least for now.

   Regan Concord was in her therapist’s office for the third time this week. She could tell a total stranger her pain. The therapist was paid to listen. Anyone closer she pushed away.

   “I knew his text was the final nail in the coffin,” Regan told the therapist she saw it coming. “I knew he might really love her,” Regan went on, “but I wasn’t ready for him to walk out the door.”

   “If anyone was going to decide to leave the marriage it should have been me,” Regan was angry. The text said, “U r right. I do luv her. Im leaving. Im sorry.”

   This was Regan, always trying to control everything, even her husband’s affair. Noah had told her in a text that he was in love with this other woman. Regan had seen the two of them together. If she hadn’t she may have been able to talk herself out of believing that there was actually another woman. All those nights Noah said he was working late. They were all lies.  

   He swore to her that he never saw this coming. He did admit to the affair, after he had been caught, but he insisted she meant nothing to him. In some small way, thinking the other woman meant nothing to Noah, except physical sex, was forgivable. Anyone could be tempted by sex; this rationale was weak but it was all Regan had. It’s just sex, she would tell herself. He didn’t love this other woman; it was just once. Regan churned these justifications around and around. They gave her temporary comfort.

   “It just happened,” he lied.

   “How does fucking another woman in our bed just happen,” Regan wanted to know.

   The words Noah texted Regan were drawn in her memory like stains of blood. He admitted he actually loved this other woman in a text. He planned to leave Regan for the other woman. Regan thought her worst nightmare had come true.

   “It’s like they are etched into my eyelids’” Regan told the therapist. “The only thing I see are these words,” Regan explained while grasping onto a drenched handful of tissues. “And then the sound of the metal, the screeching, the horns, the jolt,” she said crossing her arms. “I can’t see or hear anything else.”

   “I went through a red light at 40 miles per hour.” The police said she never slowed down. It was as if there was no intersection, no red light, and no danger whatsoever. 

   “Then what happens?” the therapist was gentle about the way she asked, pushing Regan to continue, to purge herself of the details. She has recounted the story, factually, over and over to police officers, but this was the first time her tears don’t stop falling. It was as if they will never stop and she will drown in them.

   “The truck slams into the passenger side and I hear the crush, I feel the wave. It’s so fast and it stops all at once. It’s supersonic and it’s paused.” Regan added, “I remember everything and nothing.”

   Regan was sobbing now, her eyes red and swollen and watery, her shirt wet from perspiration. She was shaking. “It’s important that you keep going,” the therapist pushed her to keep remembering.

   Regan continued, her voice cracking, she sounded almost-childlike herself. Her body was molding into a ball. Fetal position feels familiar to her. “I see Grace’s hair. It’s like a whip. It hits my cheek. She is being thrown from the backseat. I feel her skin and her arm, her delicate arm, as I reach for her with my hand. She slips out of my grasp.” Regan talked slowly, very slowly. She didn’t leave out any details. Regan is quiet for a few moments, then she opens her mouth, “She’s gone,” is all that comes out. “Grace is gone.”

   Later, after the therapist hands Regan a glass of water, she asked her to describe the rest of the scene. Regan closed her eyes and did as she was told. She’d been coming to see this therapist for a while now and she knew it’s important for her to heal.

   “Well,” Regan began, “Grace was alive one moment singing along to the music and gone the next.”

   “But what do you feel?” the therapist asked her.

   “I feel profound sadness and utter grief.” She thought back to the accident scene.  “Then I vomit when I see her mangled torso. I throw myself on her body and blood and parts. I recognize nothing.”

   “Then what?” the therapist won’t stop.

   “Jesus, isn’t this enough?” Regan was getting angry. She said she feels like dying. She said she should have died that day, not Grace. 

   “What do you feel?” the therapist interrupted, she was pushing for more.

   “I don’t know what I feel.” Regan was unwilling to dig deeper.

   “Tell me what you see,” the therapist kept at her.

   “What do I see?” Regan was confused, disoriented.

   “Yes, describe it. Describe what you see,” the therapist instructed.

   “My body is aching and I’m tangled and bruised. Glass is shattered.” Regan kept going. “What do I feel? Like nothing is ever going to be the same. I feel like I want to die. Like I should die.”

   “Good,” the therapist responded. “Keep going.”

   “What else? I guess I’m angry.” Regan grew quiet. “I’m confused why I’m still here.”

   “Why did God take Grace and not me?” Regan asked. It is more of a statement than a question. “And the world feels cruel. Like someone is playing a horrible joke. Like I’m going to wake up at any minute. Nothing makes sense.”

   “What else, Regan? What else?” the therapist asked over and over.

   “I can’t find Grace. I’m looking everywhere and calling her name. I’m screaming for her and she won’t answer me. Grace won’t answer me.” Regan goes silent.

   Then, a low guttural sound came from deep within Regan. It was a purely animalistic sound.

   “What else?” The therapist wouldn’t stop? “Regan! You were texting while you were driving. What else?”

   Regan dropped, she folded over. Her eyes were closed now, she was remembering and began to rock back and forth. She could barely breathe. Regan tried to describe the accident scene in more detail. She found Grace and crouched down over her daughter. She felt her blood and skin penetrate into her thin shirt. She tried to cover her dead daughter like a protective blanket.

   Time passed. It could be minutes or hours. Regan looked around at her. She saw Grace’s LL Bean flowery backpack a few feet away. She saw her fairy lunch bag and her Kindergarten papers and folders were blowing around in the street. Everything stopped. Regan was silent.

   “What is it?” the therapist tried one more time, in a more compassionate and sympathetic tone. “What is it?”

   “I smell her,” Regan whispered. She remembers burying her face in the crook of Grace’s neck, inhaling the scent of her hair.

   Then, getting louder, and rocking faster, Regan exhaled, “I can’t smell my daughter anymore.”