Dancing with Dad

My father is over 90-years-old and today, I accompanied him to another funeral. These occasions are becoming more frequent and emotionally harder for him. Most of his friends are a decade, if not more, younger than him, as was the friend who died this week.

I know all my dad's mates. They are the youthful men of my childhood; their now middle-aged children were my playmates. Funerals are some of the only times I see them. We turn up knowing the formula: the apologies among the living for not catching up more often, the sea of dark clothes that ripples as the attendees move and join in the rituals of goodbye. The inevitable question: how to sum up a life in a few minute's eulogy?

Dad's hands shake as he holds the service booklet. His friend's face smiles from the cover. On the back, his friend is pictured as a sombre young man. The few sheets of paper in between try to hold together the story of the years that connect the two images. 

Dad leans to me. "I saw him a little while ago. He didn’t look well.' His voice cracks as he goes on. 'He said to me, Friend, I think they're coming for me.' He turned away, gulping back tears.

We don't always know when death will come but at Dad's age, it's closer than most. I have no idea of what it feels like for him to attend a funeral. I can only imagine the thoughts and emotions that engulf him. Overly protective, I flounder trying to work out how to ease his distress. All I can do is rest a hand on his shoulder. It feels inadequate.

In the seat ahead of us, a young mother wrangles a toddler. He looks to be about 13-months-old and he's just found his feet. He explores the world, gurgling happily, while those around him mourn. Suddenly he notices Dad and stretches his arms towards him.

Dad reaches to pick him up.

The bub's mother whispers, 'He's too heavy.'

Dad shakes his head and mouths it's okay then collects him in his arms.

The toddler explores my father's face with his hands, trying to lift off Dad's glasses, using a language all of his own. Dad offers the child his thumb, which the toddler readily grabs and they press their cheeks together, pretending to dance. The toddler laughs. Dad's face glows as he smiles.

Just as suddenly, the bub turns back his mum and leans toward her. As his mother cuddles him, he smiles broadly and watches Dad over her shoulder.  

In that small space of time, Dad's tears ease.

It reminded me of something a friend told me years ago—that babies bring their own love to the world. I wonder if that bub sensed a need in Dad, who was a stranger to him.

I'd like to think that my friend's theory about babies' love was right; that somehow the love had stretched across the nearly ninety years between this baby and my father, and given Dad a few moments' comfort.

As the mourners surged out of the church, the toddler and his mum were swallowed into the crowd. We didn't see them again.

Maybe we'll see them at the next funeral.

I hope he and Dad will dance.

So, this is Christmas

Christmas hasn’t been the same since my mum, Anna, died ten years ago. After all this time I'm still uncertain what to do. Every year I wonder if I should stick with the old family traditions but without her they are less robust and over time have faded away. All I have carried from one Christmas to another was grief. 

The season had lost the infectious energy Anna brought to it. For her, the lead up to Christmas involved much kitchen activity. She busied herself making home-made pasta for the big day, baking fruit pies and home-made cassata ice cream. She filled the pantry with biscuits and cakes to share. She prepared food hampers for charity, starting well months beforehand, buying a little something to put aside every week. She participated in Samaritan’s Purse shoe-box program, and filled shoe-boxes full of small gifts for children in overseas aid programs. She thought about what gifts to give members of her family and friends, and lovingly wrapped each one. Always a superb cook, Anna excelled herself at Christmas, producing a feast, refusing to let anyone do anything to help. Finally, she would sit down with the family around her, the happiness on her face obvious. Now the empty chair at the table magnifies my loss. 

Countless people make this same journey without a loved one through the festive season each year and it never becomes less painful. There is no road map to follow, no rest stops to relieve the pain, no directions as to the best way through. Grief has its own crooked path and travels it at its own pace. Last Christmas for the first time I broke the cycle. Instead of a home-based celebration, we had a picnic near the Yarra River. It felt relaxed and dissipated the pressure to maintain what we’d always done in the past. Through that choice, I reclaimed our celebrations, perhaps establishing a new tradition.

This year an aunt is traveling from Italy to celebrate with us. It’s been over fifty years since Dad shared a Christmas table with his youngest sibling. She was five years old and he twenty-four.  If Mum were here, she’d cook and fuss and make everything welcoming. Although I can’t cook and fuss like she did, I can make things welcoming and emulate that aspect of her approach to the celebrations. So this is our new Christmas; at the heart of it, still at the heart of it a shared feast even if it's on a picnic rug. It feels right. 

I'm sure Anna would approve.  

Winter lessons in letting go

I've never thought of myself as a ‘winter person’. Don't like the cold. Don't like the grey. Don't like the darkness. It exacerbates my pain. I experience winter as a season of grief. A heavy time, where the warmth of other seasons seems lost forever. But this winter I have a new little buddy, a wee bird who is teaching me a lesson in letting go of all that I perceive as cold and getting some warmth back into my life, regardless of the season. 

The bird often sits in the bare branches of the elm tree in the backyard. I think it sad that the tree has lost all its beautiful leaves but I've noticed that the bird takes advantage of its nakedness. She sits at the very top having the best view of everything. There are no leaves to obscure her range of sight. She is in a good position to see everything that is going on. I suspect she doesn't grieve the end of the youthful spring, the passing of summer's warmth, the promise of harvest in the autumn gone. To the bird, winter is not like a death. She does not feel the need to withdraw and wait impatiently until the seasons turn again. She seems to enjoy the crisp air. She sings to the sky despite its grey undercoat.

I’ve learned from her. It occurs to me that one of the things a period (be it a season or a moment) of winter does in my life is to lay everything bare so that I could examine how I’ve been living, thinking and feeling. In resting in the quietness of the stripped back season, I can look out to new horizons. I have a chance to reflect and brave my fear of all that I experience as cold and desolate. Change is not easy at the best of times but there is a time to let things lie; to accept the solitude and in it, be at peace with the lessons that winter brings. And despite it all, like the wise little bird, I can still sing to the sky.