Let It Flow

My Dad died suddenly and quickly from a pulmonary embolism on March 1st and I’m having a tough time comprehending that it’s almost been two months since he died.  He was 71 years old and was in perfect health.

I’m still in shock and trying to accept not only the reality of his death but my new reality of life without him here in the way that I’ve known him for the last 45 years.  I miss the comforting sound of his voice, his humor, his instinctive desire to help, to love and to protect me and my family and simply looking forward to the next time that I was going to see him and hang out.

It was easier to focus on celebrating my Dad’s life and being filled with gratitude for his love in the days following his death, surrounded by family and friends at the wake and the funeral but tough now that his never changing absence gets more painful and the sadness of it all bluer.

Here is what I know today, nearly two months after my Dad’s death.  All of this pain is worth it.  If this is what it means to love and be loved so fully and so deeply, then so be it, bring it on baby.  I’m the luckiest guy in the world and am filled with gratitude for my Dad’s voice, his humor, his love, his warmth, his wisdom, and his generosity.  Keep in mind that as I write this, my heart physically aches missing him, my whole world feels consistently unsteady, there are many more questions than answers and that I sob as soon as I lay down to sleep.  I have been trying to forget about answering those questions that will never be answered in this lifetime and focus on what I do know, the simple facts.  I miss him.  I love him.  I hope that he is ok and I am so grateful for him.

Here is what changed for me these last few days.  I will welcome and let this pain shatter me into a million pieces and I will somehow confidently cobble those pieces back together and answer a resounding “Yes!” to the question, “Is love worth all of this hurt and pain?”  I will not attempt to sidestep this suffering, leap over the loneliness, pretend the finality of death doesn’t suck, fill the gut wrenching silence with noise in an effort to reach some imaginary finish line of progress quicker.  I will continue to let the wind get sucked out of me as I walk through the supermarket or drive in my car and let the tears flow and simply say, “No doubt.”  Stumble and fall on my knees multiple times a day and get back up and say “Yep. Still worth it. Bring the funk.”  My strength and courage to keep getting hit and have the unwavering hope and faith that I will keep getting back up is due to what my Dad taught me by how he lived and loved his own life and all of us in it.  Love is it, everything, and love always wins even when we have absolutely no idea how or when it will.

I choose to face the eye of this brutal storm head on because I want to love again, deeper, truer and more genuinely than I have ever loved even before my Dad died, which is saying something because I’ve loved and been loved fully my whole life.  I am working to fully accept and digest death as an inevitable part of life and yet still see life as the gift that it is- an opportunity to love and be loved, and know that love triumphs somehow, someway over death, always.  I want to look at a sunset and be even more thankful for its beauty, to wonder profoundly at our children for all of their life, love and laughter, to be so filled with gratitude in the simplest act of holding my wife’s hand or hugging her that a tear effortlessly rolls down my cheek.  I will continue to get tossed around in these waves of emotion, find my sea legs and say “Yes” again and again so that the gift of laughing, singing, dancing, and talking with friends and family is felt so deeply in my soul that I continually whisper “Thank you, Dad.”