The Next Day

A day after getting the news about my dad I am feeling alternately lost and liberated. Lost in the sense that at times I feel like an orphan now that both of my parents are gone. Liberated in the sense that I no longer have to worry about a lonely and confused parent adrift halfway across the country. When I spent time with him at his house, he felt just as lost, and it was hard to know how best to help him.

Having been through this process two and a half years ago with my mother, it is all very familiar and deceptively easier than it was that first time. I know the process and logistics of conducting a funeral, but I realize that the emotional processing over the hours and weeks ahead are unknowns.

After my mother died, I struggled with a futile desire to hold onto and nurture the past, a past that never really existed and I over-sentimentalized. I think I did that in part for my father's benefit since it was hard for him to concentrate on the present, let alone the future. This has often been a very painful past two years, but I will also miss it, even the hard parts of it.

What is different, though, is that I have no desire to hold on to the past. That doesn't mean to that I want to forget it or that I ever will espcape it. But I know that I can't hold on to it any more than I can hold on to the sky.

I feel that I am finally living on both sides of my skin and in the present.