Keep Walking

It's so hard to believe this is the third year I will celebrate my father's birthday without him. Although I still miss him terribly, I am grateful to be in a different place than I was that first year he was gone. I still have an aching void in my heart today. I want to make chocolate chip cookies and pumpkin pie. I want to buy and wrap western shirts and cowboy boots. I want to sing Happy Birthday, tell him to make a wish, and kiss his cheek...

 

The following is a personal narrative I wrote for my Writing class last semester. It is based on a letter I wrote and released that first year (six months after my father's death). Each time I read this, I am brought back. I remember how much I hurt because that is just how much I loved him. How grateful I am for my father's love, his many examples to me of forgiveness, kindness, charity, and optimism. Daddy was my person.

As with any trial or loss, there are good things to glean through them. It is sometimes difficult to see and feel God's love all around us as we travel through the cold darkness of grief. How grateful I am to have arrived to this place--this day--stronger and surer than ever before that life and love are ETERNAL. I will love you forever...until we meet again, Happy Birthday Daddy! xoxoxo

Dearest Beach-Comber,

            If you find this letter, know that it was written more as a token of gratitude for the sea than anything else. I wonder what beach you’re standing on and what burdens you might carry today, whether your favorite beach is as comforting a place for you as my little beach has been for me, or if what I have to say will resonate with you in any way. I realize the probability of this message in a bottle surviving the open sea, washing up on the shore, and reaching you is against all odds.  I only know I must release this and keep walking …

My soul felt as cold and gloomy as the weather in Carlsbad that May of 2010.  A fog-laden layer of cold air sat over the California coastline for most of the summer.  I too had been socked in. How glad I was that the Sea and sky above her didn’t mock me with warmth and light.  It made it easier for me to come and lay my burdens at her feet. I walked miles and miles each week marveling at her ability to nurture me on any given day. On those occasional beautiful Southern Californian days we had that summer, I instinctively came to her anyway, knowing she always gave to me exactly what I needed. I lapped up her warm, delicious offerings like a hungry, orphaned child. Unable to find peace and comfort on my own, I sought refuge, clarity, and communion as I met the Sea each day and walked her water’s end.

As I met with the Sea daily at her shoreline, I mourned the loss of my father: my beloved, steady parent and friend. Together, the Sea and I questioned out loud the notion that God never gives us anything we cannot handle.  She allowed me space enough to travel through the questions, knowing the answers would come and meet me. Many times when simply walking beside her was not enough, I’d throw off my sundress and step into her, as if to say “I need a hug today.”  Within her, all my thoughts and feelings moved as freely as her liquid currents. Intuitively, I laid back, releasing what seemed like buckets of salty tears and choking childlike sobs into her buoyant, maternal crèche – preserved for just a moment.  She felt kindred to me. Her ebb and flow was not much different than my own soul’s stillness and searching, or my heart’s break and continuum.  Centered in her wise, watery wake, I was once again able to reconnect with my own breath, reaffirming there is a rise and fall in everything. As an unassuming counselor, she whispered;”This is the rhythm of all living.”

Deep into July, I realized I was no longer trudging through the sand and my grief. My walks naturally became more leisurely. Like the sore, tight, and weary dancer who soaks in Epsom salts, an ample portion of my pain and stiffness had been drawn out through the soles of my feet, pulled away, and released into her vast oceanic basin.  I occasionally stopped to garner pieces of her: smooth stones, diminutive driftwood, small shells, and cloudy shards of glass. I took this precious time to gather myself as well. I carefully sifted and sorted, discovering lost pieces of self, either forgotten or shelved.  As I travelled home with gauzy pockets wet and weighed down with her treasures, less obvious were those intangible gifts gleaned through grief.

Ironically, August brought answers in the form of questions. “Could it be possible my father’s death -- the worst thing that has ever happened to me –is the thing that will lift me up and deliver me to my best and truest self?”  I thought, “Can this surging tide of grief be swallowed up in something meaningful – something good?” My suffering moved me—no pushed me— towards truths. At that point, I had no choice but to look and stare down my realities and either befriend or change them. As never before, I found myself contemplating what I wanted to accomplish and become before I died. Time spent in thoughtful introspection aroused the realization that I had made life too small for myself. I was living a boxed life. And although there seemed to be no easy way out, my profound loss forced me to let go of the lid, freed again to both reach and surrender. With a little more faith in every footstep, I finally began to see God’s handwriting in the sand.

            The last days of September brought the end of summer and my father’s birthday. Just days before, I felt myself slipping backward. Armed with sunshine and serotonin, I caught myself and fought back. I realized what Daddy would want for his birthday. Although I wished with all of my heart I could have bought his present and beautifully wrapped it for him, as I did in years past, I decided to write and release my gift to him. As cathartic and restoring as my walks had become, I had withdrawn from living.  With the Sea as my only companion, I distanced myself from everyone and everything else that I loved.  My father died. That was the awful truth. But, I knew in my heart, if he were there with me, he would have said, “Honey, all I see you doing is going to the beach every single day. You can keep walking, but start living!” On what would have been my father’s 71^st birthday, I gently let go of the bottle and began to do both.