When my mother died, she'd been sick for so long--gone long before she died--that I really really needed to remember her as she had been before she was sick. The last years of her life were intense. I wanted to temper those years (though not forget them) with a view of the full range of her experiences and personality. Fortunately, as I have said, I have been able to do so, somewhat.
But my father's death was different. I didn't really know him well until my mother died. Then we understood each other better.
Plenty of times, I rolled my eyes at him, his fussy ways, his deliberation, his turtle self. As I have said before.
But I also listened. I learned about perseverance and the power of being of service to others. The importance of showing up and of saying "thank you." The wisdom of not uttering aloud every little thing that passes through your mind. (Still working on that one.)
In his final month, he showed courage and grace as he accepted his body's failure with patience and dignity. His faith let him look to the future with curiosity and hope, not fear. He became ever more himself until his death.
Sometimes, I still find it hard to believe that he's gone. I miss him, of course. But I find that when I am inclined to get overly sentimental, something reminds me of the rest of him--his human side. He was a tense driver, and his driving worsened with age. Last night I dreamed he was driving me somewhere. When the traffic light changed to green, he slammed the accelerator to the floor and turned left in front of oncoming traffic, then jumped a median. In my dream, I thought, "Oh yeah, there was this, too," and woke up laughing.
As I get older, my parents get younger. I've posted this picture before, in relation to my mother. It's become a favorite way to remember both of them--even though I can't actually remember it, since I wasn't born for another 15 years.
This is from one of my grandmother's photo albums. In white, she has written "And so, they lived happily ever after." Which pretty much says it all. Except how grateful I am.
