Cast Me Gently Into Mourning

Preface:

I had this post written and scheduled to publish before I heard about Shana’s sweet sweet boy, Thalon, leaving this world yesterday afternoon. My heart is aching for Shana and her family, and while I initially thought I would save this post for a later date, after talking to Angella about it at length I decided to go ahead and let it be, and share it today. My heart is aching for The Spohrs, it’s aching for Shana, it’s aching for my best friend and her mother who was recently diagnosed with breast cancer, and my heart is aching for my father, too. (Updated to add: if you would like to help the Gorillabuns family offset the cost of Thalon’s hospital stay and funeral expenses, the paypal donation site is here. Thanks to Whoorl for setting it up. Once this post slides down the main page, you’ll also be able to find a link to the donation page on my side-bar for the rest of the month, under the “and I quote” section.)

In other words, April is no friend of mine this year. But April being a right wench is something I happen to be used to. Peace and bear hugs to you today, friends.

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It sneaks up on me. The missing him. I can’t ever anticipate it, even though I think after all this time I should be able to sense the waves of emotion catapulting toward me; I should be able to hear grief creeping up behind me, clad in flannel and tiptoeing oh so carefully around the productivity, the efficiency, the ability to heal I set up like boundaries to keep me safe, to keep me dry.

I suppose after all these years it shouldn’t surprise me grief doesn’t ever pause for my pretenses; I should know better.

The clean smell and cheerful sight of tulips and daffodils stretching their colorful heads above the still-cold earth bring me instant smiles every spring, and with their living symbols of renewal and hope, reminders that April 5th and 15th also loom near.

April 5th was my father’s birthday. He would have been 53 last Sunday. The picture below is my dad and his mom on April 5th 1983. I would have been 10 months old.

April 15th was the day my father dove into rushing water too cold and too fast for him to navigate; April 15th was the day he drowned. It was also the day a large part of me sunk to the bottom of a remorseless river. He was 39. I was 12, almost 13.

My father died in April, 1995. That was 14 years ago.

Those are the numbers, the raw statistics of the event. I’ve officially lived more years without my father than I have with him.

The reality of the situation is of course a bit more complicated. As is missing him.

I can’t predict mourning any more than anyone else can; I can’t explain it, and, in my experience, the pain doesn’t lessen with time. I think that’s mostly nonsense we tell ourselves to make suffering bearable, to bolster ourselves against the reality that hearts break, losses are routinely and supremely felt, and holes left by those we loved and who loved us aren’t always filled with anything beyond an aching to see them again, to know them again.

Some Aprils come and go without me crying at all. Some Aprils are so hard to swallow that I feel a weight sitting on my chest the entire thirty days. Sometimes the grief and anxiety I feel about losing my dad have absolutely nothing to do with this month at all.

I just miss him. Especially this month. Especially today. Especially just because I do.

“at the river

most turn back, their souls shivering,

but my little girl stands alone on the bank

and watches.
”

-from the death of thelma sayles, by Lucille Clifton

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