Happy Birthday, Dad

He would have been 88 today. His mother lived to be 90; she was the only biological grandparent I knew. Dad's dad died young. I think my dad was 17 when his dad died. I'll have to look it up. Dad died a month short of his 69th birthday, 19 years ago. And Mom died 6 months ago yesterday.

So many dates and anniversaries, I begin to wonder if there are too many to really mean anything, other than I get lots of memory prompts in the summer. They each mean a little less the farther I move away from them. I used to go to the shore of Lake Michigan and send Dad a Happy Birthday balloon every year on this date. After 3 or 4 years I stopped. I no longer felt that need.

Yet I also notice that I do not forget these dates. I make a point not to forget all these dates. They must mean something; in fact, I feel as though their meaning is probably fairly obvious. Maybe it's too close, staring me in the face, as they say, so that I cannot make out the relevance of remembering these milestones. Or maybe that's the point, remembering. Those casually tossed off "memory prompts" are the meaning. Wisdom has it that one mustn't live in the past. Ignoring the past is, on the other hand, ignoring what made us what we are in the present.

Whatever the meaning, the memories are here, as is the love (and the fights and the laughs and the dysfunction). Another milestone, more memories, another summer day.

Another milestone

When last I wrote, I mentioned that my dad's birthday is this week--tomorrow, actually. What I didn't even realize was that today, August 12, is the 6-month anniversary of Mom's death.

I had lunch with a friend/colleague today, a mutual friend of my colleague who died two months ago tomorrow. We talked a lot about death, and her aging parents (her mom has Alzheimer's). I would not say it was a morbid conversation, however, or even a depressing one. It was a necessary one, perhaps. What I have found, especially in these past 6 months, is that there are a fair number of people out there who will do anything to avoid talking about, and thus thinking about, death. Quite frankly, that doesn't work for me. Death is a natural consequence of life. To try to ignore it makes absolutely no sense to me. Acknowledging it, accepting it, even expecting it seems not only rational, but helpful. Being at my mom's side when she died was an incredibly grace-filled moment. I felt that she honored me by allowing me to witness that transition.

So a lunch conversation about death does not strike me as odd or morbid, but in many ways as helpful. Death happens.

And Mom, wherever you are now, it cannot be as bad as the hell of Alzheimer's, so I don't wish you back, but I do miss you. I hope that whatever place you are in, in whatever form you are in, it's giving you peace.

Pilgrimage

Monday, July 26, would have been Mom's 88th birthday. To mark the occasion, Jeanne and I drove up to Green Bay (with our dog Cleo). We hadn't been to the cemetery since Mom's burial and the engraving being finished. So I bought a plant, which is surely dead by now unless "neighbors" are watering it, and placed it on the grave. Here is a partially shaded photo:

We didn't stay long at the cemetery; there's not much to do there. So we cruised past Mom & Dad's old condo. We also found my childhood home, which got moved when the YWCA bought the lot for parking. I knew what street they moved it to, but not which block. So we drove up the street until I recognized it; it's a big house, and had a few identifying features that made me confident that I'd correctly identified it. That was enjoyable; I loved that house. We also drove past my old high school, to make sure the headless children still had their heads reattached (long story, but one that always brings a smile. I may have to tell it some day, as Mom has a significant role in it).

Then we picked up some lunch, and had a little picnic at a park by the river. It felt surprisingly freeing to be in my home town with no agenda, no one to have to see, nowhere to have to be.

And then we drove home. I did not feel overtly emotional that day, but I could feel the next day that things were not their placid normal selves. Not much more to report than that. Getting ready for Dad's birthday next week. As I mentioned in my previous post, this is the season of remembering for me.