Galina J. Fouks-Abele
Author and Illustrator of Maurice’s Daughter, A Book of Healing
Traumatic loss, Is it ever easy?
I knew it was time for me to get out of bed, brush myself off and get some therapeutic help when I was found with a hammer in my uncle’s garage pounding a hole into my black leather belt to make it smaller because I had just lost 30 pounds in four months in the aftermath of my dad’s death. It was now February 16th, 1996. Or it might have been the wake-up call I had when my car was hydroplaning and I did not even flinch when I almost drove off a bridge into the cold Chattahoochee River.
Death is never easy. If we did not grieve, we obviously never loved. When your loved ones life unwillingly ends traumatically, it opens up more wounds then the accident itself I feel. One learns to live with grief, it really never leaves you. A loss so great like this you never get over it. It’s like putting on your socks, your make up, buttoning up your blouse, and grabbing your briefcase for work. It moves with you. It grows old with you. But even 16 years after my dad’s death, I just cried when I thought about how much I miss him. I just typed the word “dad”, and the tears did not stop for this article. I think about how much he would have loved meeting his grandsons. He would have loved my husband Rich. They are so much alike. Sometimes, I think they have the same hands. It could be a scent, a sound, or a picture that can bring you right back to those minutes surrounding that traumatic moment. Sure, time helps, and the lump in the back of the throat disappears after a while. But as one goes throughout life, with all your accomplishments and hurdles, they are not there to celebrate or nurture you anymore. You as a person are the director of your own mortality. It can empower you to survive the loss, or you don’t. It is sad to watch many just give up and never move on.
I just placed a call and left a message for one of my one of my oldest friend’s Brian who is soon to be attending his father’s funeral in Chicago today. I remember waiting in the dark black limousine for my family. I was appalled that they were running behind for my father’s funeral. I was so anxious to go see him one last time. I needed to be with him. I thought about getting out of the car and running that day to my dad. For several reasons I feel horrible that I cannot be there in person today for my friend. My friend asked last night if the worst was over. I was honest with him and told him the worst is yet to come. I reflected on his father’s life quietly alone and his long battle with cancer. I sent off my goodbyes and thoughts into the wind. I cried for over an hour the night his dad died. I recalled the dances we shared at his son’s Wedding in Ireland, the BBQ’S in his backyard when we were in high school, how he would roll his eyes at all the “pet” rabbits that roamed freely inside their home, the pride he had with his brilliantly green and weed less grass and lastly the laughs we had when I crashed the male only “Bachelor Party.” I prayed and told him I will see him in the future and together we will all laugh again.
Ironically the bond between me and Brian is very kindred. Soul mate kindred. I have always sensed when there was something wrong in Brian’s life and most of my friends lives. I started paying close attention to my intuition. It never fails me now. One time out of the many, I called, sure enough he had just driven his car underneath a moving semi on 294 in Chicago. He told me he would call me right back after the tow truck came. Last month, I called after having a bad feeling for hours about him. He answered and immediately said, “I am so glad you called.” I told him I had had ANOTHER bad feeling all day. He said “Hold on Gal, the coroner is here now and I can’t bear to listen to them move my father’s body from his bed.” His father had battled cancer for about 2 years. He didn’t have to say anything more to me. I know that feeling. It became a line in my recent children’s book:
“Take my hearing take my sight,
I would trade anything to have
Him back in this light.”
He went into the bathroom and turned on the shower. For a second we sat in silence with the hush of water in the background. It dulled the sounds of the stretcher’s wheels. I know that sound; I once sat in a church for a funeral and could not understand where this piercing sound was coming from. Queue the music please. Someone play a harp or something I thought. We played Pacabel Canon in D and Amazing Grace while people waited in the church during my dad’s funeral. It was the wheels of the casket making its way down the aisle. It was a horrific sight. All you could hear was the wheels and the family crying as they walked behind their father. The day after my dad died, Brian sat on the floor in despair with me in my father’s closet. We looked at my father’s wardrobe silently deciding what he should wear. I remember my mom folding into the drawer of his dresser crying in anguish because she could not find ONE pair of matching and comfortable socks for my dad, she cried, “I just want him to be comfortable in the casket.”
As he sat in the bathroom, Brian asked me what I thought was more difficult: sudden death or a death of an illness/natural causes? I told him “Pain is Pain,” and both losses hurt immensely. I have experienced many on both sides. But nothing prepares you for a sudden death. There are no goodbyes. No one was holding his hand. I do not know what is worse, it doesn’t matter. I have held my grandparent’s hands in their dying days. I have stood next to a friend who accidently shot himself and died shortly afterwards. I saw a neighborhood friend being pulled out of a burning car after he committed suicide. Nothing prepares you. Your mortality is driven by how you live your life afterwards. Faith, Religion and Education can prepare one to a certain point. I think it is simple, you either survive it or you don’t. No one prepares you for the empty chair at the first holiday dinner, the scent of your loved one on their old pillow, the emptiness you feel over the years, and not having the company of that one over for the traditional morning coffee. Hazelnut coffee was his favorite. He liked it black.
Using past tense was impossible for me.
“He died. He is gone.”
I never said, “He is dead.”
Those words were so permanent and final.
I always referred to my dad’s passing as
“He passed.”
After experiencing so many traumatic deaths, there has been one good aspect of it. It molded my “moral compass” in life. It directed me to do public service. I have been in special education for over 15 years. It gifted me an idea for my first children’s book on grief that I wrote and illustrated, Maurice’s Daughter, A Book of Healing. I now have started my second on the same subject. It has transformed me into a person that wants to comfort and help the grief stricken and the bereaved community. I wish I had a million arms to hold each one in their time of need. I want my book in every Hospice, every floor of a hospital and in every Funeral Home. I want for one brief moment to make someone feel better even if it is only for a minute throughout their time in morning. I have great hope, inspiration and determination to find some good in all this sadness I once was PLAGUED with.
I was born in Chicago, and grew up in La Grange and Spider Lake, Wisconsin respectively. My parents were amazing. We were a very tight unit. People envied our closeness. Our house was “The House” to come to on the block. Every light was always on. We had the first VCR in the neighborhood and the first portable boom box. The house was always littered with toys and the evidence of “fun.” My dad was an Artist and my mother was a Private School Principal. I would beg him to put away all the naked paintings of women around the house before my friends came over. July 1995, I had only seen my dad cry once before this year. It was his mother’s death. That summer we threw our parents a 25th Anniversary Party where we invited everyone who was at their wedding in 1970. We recreated their wedding cake. We framed all their photographs from their wedding album that decorated the house. Balloons floated around the house with champagne glasses tied to them. People wrote letters and we created a scrap book with everyone’s notes of love. It was an amazing surprise. My friend who is a producer edited a film of pictures that stemmed from their birth to ours and all the memoires we made. It was choreographed to Enya, James Taylor and Bob Dylan songs. I witnessed my dad cry for the second time in his life. I have a great picture of us hugging while tears rolled down his cheeks. He was a great father; my very own cheerleader, my life coach, my math tutor, my assistant softball coach, and my friend. He once found me crying on my bed staring at a picture of a boy I “loved” in high school. Robbie broke my heart and asked someone else to his prom. I was devastated. My dad asked what was wrong and I told him. He told me that he was a fool and would later regret it in life. Funny enough, I think he did regret it. I turned out a lot nicer then the girl he took to prom.
He would drive the car next to me at night while I jogged. He was once my personal shopper too. I was in bed after my first knee surgery and wanted a Homecoming dress I saw in a catalog. He drove over to Marshal Fields, battled the mobs of feisty teens and found my size.
Flashback circa 1982:
I remember when I came home from Junior high school
When I was in 7th grade and
Wanted to try out for the cheerleading squad.
All the cool girls were on the team.
He said “No, absolutely not.
You will never cheer for anyone,
They will cheer for you.”
I was dumbfounded.
About 10 years later when I received The MVP and a NCAA Title at The University of South Florida after I completed 4 years of D1 volleyball, my dad walked onto the court and whispered “See, I told you they would cheer for you.” I looked over his shoulder, smiled and laughed at the sight of a squad of cheerleaders clapping their pompoms for me. He was far beyond his time with the Arts, Nutrition, Literature, vitamins, etc. He was an old soul, very intelligent, funny, and would dance with us randomly around the house. He always showered us with affectionate hugs and kisses. We all knew how loved we were. My childhood was fortunately amazing. I was only grounded once, I was outside barefoot again. The problem was I had just got home from the hospital after receiving a tetanus shot because I stepped on a rusty nail barefooted. I was bit a free spirit back then.
It was October 16th, 1995 and I was crying uncontrollably in my car at 4:59 pm on a Monday night inside a parking garage. I was holding onto the steering wheel shaking. I think I hit it out of total despair and frustration. I was 25 years old. It was chilly. Fall was in the air. I was working on my second degree in Art Education at Georgia State University and I just failed miserably on a test I forgot to study for. I had been so distracted because my boyfriend of three years cheated on me and we had just broken up and I was somewhat homeless. I don’t know what I was more upset about, the test, walking away from everything we had ever owned, the constant lying, or the fact I was alone. I gave myself 30 more minutes of a good cry and pulled myself together before I got back to my aunties house where I was staying until I could find another home for myself in Atlanta. While I sat in the car trying to compose myself I thought about how intense that cry was. I had not cried like that ever to my astonishment. It was such an emotional release. I thought maybe it was a hormonal thing I was now going through? 25 was now mid way to middle age! As I drove home that night I recalled a recent conversation I had with my dad about his opinion and some advice. I did not realize that that conversation would be the lifelong “tool” I turned to whenever I needed a “reminder” in my life.
He told me, “Do not to let anyone ever get in the way of your dreams.
There may be some hurdles but
Please make sure you stay in school
and finish your second degree in Art Education so you can teach.
Finding something you love to do in life and making
a career out of it is the best thing you can ever do for yourself.
That type of happiness will
filter into everything else that comes your way.”
Later his best friend told me he had said to him that he wanted me:
“to dance throughout this life
and he hoped I would find someone to carry me.”
I think he secretly wanted to fly down after Tom and I broke up and do some rearranging ( and I am not talking about the furniture). The night we broke up I called my dad in the middle of the night. I told him what happened and he said “Get your purse and your dog and get out of there now.” That is the PC version. I do have to edit this. He said, “I will be down this week to help you move your belongings.” Little did he know my mom beat him to a ticket and flew down within hours.
I walked into my aunt’s house and acted like nothing happened. I was wearing my comfy Levi jeans and a black turtle-neck sweater. It was Monday. The sun was just setting. We were watching Melrose Place on the TV when the phone rang. If you are around my age, you will remember those great billboards around town advertising the show. My cousin answered the phone and I was startled by her expression on her face. This was before cell phones and in fact I think it was attached to the wall but with a very long stretchy cord. She looked at me and hesitated nervously, but with a sheepish smile, “I think it is your mom? I can’t tell if she is laughing or…” I jumped up and took the phone from my cousin Kelly. I said “Hello.”
I can still hear the shrill of grief in my mom’s voice and tone. Minutes went by that seemed like hours as I just kept on begging her to say what was wrong. ‘Is it grandma, grandpa? Did something happen to one of the kids? What! What! What? Christ, tell me what is wrong?” She screamed into the phone directly but was asking the doctor at the same time for advice, “How do I tell my daughter her father was just killed in a car accident?” That’s all I heard.
I fell to the floor.
He had died at 4:59pm.
Grief does that to you. It will take you to the floor without asking for permission. It comes without an invitation and at any time of day. It doesn’t wait for a “good time.” I speak like it is a third person grammatically. It doesn’t care. I was on my knees for a very long time, burying my face into the floor, screaming, kicking and punching the laminate tile in my auntie’s kitchen. I was uncontrollable. I kept on screaming , “No, NO, No. Oh, My, God, No.” Over and Over I yelled. The floor was so cold. My dog Rudy hid. He was scared. The floor was so cold, it actually cooled my body temperature down. I remember how my cheek felt pressed to the floor. Dust and grime was stuck to my lips. I felt like throwing up. The worst pain I have ever imagined was happening to me emotionally. I felt like I was kicked in the stomach. Physically, I went hoarse after a while and could not talk. Air leaves your lungs and you are powerless. My other cousin Hale heard my screams from the street while he was walking his dogs. He tried to lift me up from the ground. He was begging me to tell him what was wrong. I couldn’t even speak, let along say the words. I thought I was losing my mind. I feel horrible that my cousins had to witness the worst moment anyone could have. I was embarrassed for a moment to how I was acting then slipped right back into the insanity. So began the slow moving movie that I was watching. The next chapter is like mini commercials in between the movie that was now playing in front of me. Though, I was now the main character, far from the usual position with a bowl of popcorn or a glass of wine. I could feel the adrenaline in my body going to my major organs and trying to protect them. Major exhaustion was taking over. If I was on the roof of a building I could have easily leaned over the edge and never looked back. He got me to my bed and I sat there in shock. I could hear my heart pound. Beat after beat, thud after thud. I swallowed hard. My mouth was so dry. I tried to smoke a cigarette to calm me down. I smoked about 20. I was starring at the two racing around the room trying to pack a bag for me. I could see them wrapping my tooth brush, throwing in some socks, and grabbing things off the hangers. Nothing matched but I really did not care. I was so numb but I consciously knew I needed to get to the airport fast and find a flight to Chicago immediately.
I ran up to the front of the line to the Value Jet Desk and tried to tell the counter attendant what was happening. I broke down, placed my forehead on the counter and could not get the words out. My cousin became my voice and begged for a seat on their next and last plane to leave the entire Hartsfield International Airport that night. We only had roughly 30 minutes until it departed. There were about 100 people standing behind me. I remember the words, “sold out and sorry.” Devastated. But within seconds I heard, “she can have my seat” a gentleman said from behind me. It was $78.00. That was the grief fare. I thought, they actually have this?
As I stood waiting for my ticket I thought to myself,
“Why are people laughing? I see people eating.
How can they eat? I don’t think food will ever pass these lips.
Why is there so much chatter? Stop all the clocks and put life on hold.
I wanted to yell, “Don’t you know that my father was just killed?”
They boarded me first and sat me in the first seat in the first row. Two flight attendants sat with me and gave me a glass of wine to calm me down. I was not a big drinker, but that glass of wine felt like I had just won the lottery. They held my hand and rubbed my back. They really tried to help ease my pain. It is amazing how strangers came together and the American Spirit rallied in my defense.
I would later write an editorial piece about “Forgiveness” for the Atlanta Journal of Constitutional later that year thanking Value Jet and the flight attendants I knew only by their first names. My picture was even featured on the editorial page. It was from a wedding. I looked happy. I hadn’t had any recent pictures taken of me to send in at that time. Dark circles plagued my face. The loss of 30 pounds that I did not need to lose anyway did not help my appearance. My hair fell out in clumps. The picture and story took up most of the page. My uncle who was a Delta Pilot at the time said “In My Words” was the talk of the pilot’s locker room at Hartsfield International Airport for days. They, the flight attendants that I thanked wholeheartedly never reached out to me. I came to the conclusion through sources they all died on that fateful flight into the Florida Everglades. They had checked on me every five minutes. I buried my face into a little white 7x 4 inch pillow. It absorbed my sobs. I was freezing, wrapped in the 5x5 foot blankets. An African American woman who was my grandmother’s age sat down next to me. I heard the flight attendant whisper to her what had just happened to my father. A complete stranger, she now held me for the next two hours and prayed out loud for me. I imagined the plane rising into the clouds, closer to heaven and closest to where my dad was now. I imagined his hands holding the tips of the plane guiding us towards the city. Wings of an airplane transformed into feathers of angel’s wings. He was now my pilot. We landed and the fall chill slapped me in the face outside of the old Midway Airport. I would later have an exhibit of a photography shoot that I did in his name based on this flight. I photographed old army planes, with cracked windshields, images of Christ burned into the plane’s wings and a series of me dancing on his grave dressed in a shroud.
I arrived home and when my best friend pulled up to my mother’s house, the wheels had barely stopped and I went running into the house. Every light was on. Five hours after his death, every room was filled. Though, so unlike my house ever stood, there was no laughter greeting me when I ran inside. It was now silent except when I heard a burst of a grown man’s sob when he saw me. I emotionally whispered because I was still hoarse, “Where is my mom?” My dad’s best friend pointed upstairs. I never saw a grown man in such despair. His face was swollen. It was red from crying. He had his face buried in his wife’s shoulder. Normally a powerful, strong man was riddled with grief. He was present the day I was born and brushed his teeth accidently with shaving cream in anticipation for my arrival. I raced past all the paintings my dad painted of us over the years. I felt like covering them up with large black sheets like the Jewish tradition is with mirrors. There was my brother painted at age 5 laughing with the monkeys and elephants. To my left as I ran past the stairs was the first painting my dad painted of me when I was born. He painted my mother cradling me in her arms and featured himself standing in a boat in the background of the painting watching over us. I flew up the wooden stairs, ran around the corner and opened her door to her room. There she sat on her set of stairs with my other sister at her feet crying. I fell into her arms. What I know for sure, my dad did not go to heaven right away. He was right next to us. He was still here. He had been with me since he left this world at 4:59pm. I was really never alone on my journey home. We all tried to sleep that night, all four children and my mom in her king size bed. Our doctors prescribed tranquilizers. They did not affect me a bit. It was like candy.
I stood bright eyed in their bathroom sometime in the middle of the night staring at his favorite robe and his Marilyn Monroe Pajamas. They had the repetitious print of her Andy Warhol-Esq. face and her lips blazoned all over them. I buried my head into them and there it was, His scent, and I sobbed. He cannot be gone? All of his things are STILL here. This is not happening! How can God take him? He was so needed. How am I going to survive this? What was going to happen to my mother? I sobbed more quietly trying to blow my nose so I do not wake anyone. I am not sure they are even sleeping outside the door. I saw his razor that was made out of an old tree branch. I smelled his cologne and I put it on me. I stood in his closet trying to figure out what was missing. I saw he forgot to wear his medical necklace, I put that on too. I found his dog tags and wrapped those around my neck as well. Every time I moved you could hear the chime of his necklaces. What did he have on before the accident I questioned? There were all my favorite shirts of his. The one shirt that I “borrowed” in college was hanging in the middle. He had my sister secretly take it back when she visited me. I saw his favorite handkerchief he used with his suit he wore to the opera with my mother. I tucked that into my pocket of my jeans. I was still now in the same clothes I had on since I left Atlanta. There was his Guess Jeans that he had in every color. He complained how expensive they were when he bought me my desired pairs at Marshall Fields. Later he bought every color Guess had to offer when they made it to the cheaper outlets. I recalled the last time I saw him alive. It was the day I was moving to Atlanta. It was August, 1995. He was wearing his canary yellow silk shirt. His sunroof was open and the sun highlighted his crystal white grey hair. I laughed because he states he turned gray as soon as I was born. He waved goodbye and yelled out the window ‘I love you baby!” I watched him pull away and drive down the street. As I stood in his space, there was his favorite silk shirt. A mix between era’s of abstract expressionism and a modern Monet painting. It looked like an abstract painting. Colors of Green, black, red and browns swirled all over it. His favorite black feather pen leaked in the pocket on that very same shirt. He was so upset when it happened. He was such a clothes horse. I told him that it blended right in. You couldn’t even tell there was a stain because it looked just like the print. He was relieved with my comments and reassurance. I pressed the stained pocket into my face hoping I could go back to that day in the living room when his fountain pen exploded. Could I click my heels and go back in time? I would trade anything at this point to have one more moment with him. That triggered another memory of mine. I was about 10 and I was sitting on his lap outside my mom’s office on these big bright yellow chairs.
I asked him,
“ what happens to all of our stuff when we die?”
He said, “Well, we don’t take it with us.”
I looked down at my Navy blue cotton slacks
that I had on. They even had a special sewn
on rainbow colored belt. I loved Gloria Vanderbilt’s
little swan insignia that was on the pocket. I asked my dad,
“Well what happens to my favorite pants?”
He explained that they would give them away
for someone else to use. I recalled I did not like
that thought, someone else wearing my favorite pants?
I went through his music collection later searching for the Gypsy Kings CD and his Enya collection he turned me onto. I once blew out his new speakers unintentionally when I was listening to The Gypsy Kings. My dad had just purchased these state of the art speakers. Later, when he went to play his music, there was nothing but static. I felt so bad and till this day he never knew what truly happened. I would later attend A Gypsy Kings Concert to celebrate his life for the next 3 years on his birthday after his death. WE LOVED MUSIC TOGETHER. We took violin lessons together when I was 5. Later I switched to the flute and he loved it. Though, I was not very good, I had the last chair in the band. He loved Enya as well; “On Your Shore” was our favorite. He later painted a painting of me while I sat on a Florida Beach shoreline. I can still hear that song every time I look at that painting. I remember when he gave it to me for Christmas 5 years prior. I was so shocked. It was beautiful. I felt bad that my siblings did not have a lot of paintings of themselves. I felt very spoiled being the oldest. My mom told me later he really missed me when I went away at college. To this day I have never listened to Enya again.
His Cd’s were not here in the house and I knew where they were. They must still be in his car. That was my next place I wanted to go, His car. It was now impounded by the police and the insurance company. They had it towed to a lot nearby and I told my family I was going out to the drug store. I lied and I drove straight to the lot and lied again to the attendant. I told him I was the spokesman for the family and I was here to retrieve the contents left in the 1995 Audi that was impounded late last night. He looked at me and said,
“Ok, that’s good,
we wouldn’t want any
immediate family member
to see its condition.”
I swallow hard.
It was parked outside the door about 50 feet from the gate. It was champagne color and it glistened in the sun light. It looked perfectly normal from behind. Maybe this was the wrong car? Maybe they had the wrong person. My dad was an excellent driver. Maybe he went into a diabetic shock and was in the hospital unconscious. I began to run. This next scene would be the climax to this horrible movie I was watching. And there it was. Pieces of him. I saw his hair loosely around the front seat. All the windows were smashed in. The front of the car looked like an accordion. I knew he died immediately to what I was putting together in my mind. I was reliving how and where he must of hit his head. Two witnesses said two different things; one said he saw him struggling to get out of the car, the other saw him slumped over the wheel. I began to collapse and held onto the roof of the car for support. There was his coffee cup. I leaned into the car and tried to turn on the radio and see what station he was listening to or what CD was in. Was it NPR? His favorite Opera? Cat Stevens, Bob Dylan or the Eagles? What CD was in the receiver? I looked in the back seat and in pristine condition was the CD of our Enya. She was looking up at me and I screamed. I want to gather his hair but my ex boyfriend Tom who flew up to help me this week pulls me away from the car and carries me back to ours. I beg him to turn around. I plead I need to get one more thing. He told me I was scaring him and it was not healthy for me to see my dad’s remains scattered like that. I just wanted his hair, One last piece of him.
Brian, my friend who I mentioned earlier came over and we sat alone and talked. I told him what had happened earlier. I told him what I wanted and Tom prevented me from doing so. I have learned over the years that there is no wrong way to grieve. Everyone is different and it is not uncommon for many to hold onto hair, dirt, or a special belonging of their loved one. One should not abuse alcohol, illegal drugs or oneself. It is okay to admit that you might need a bereavement group, a pastor, or a grief therapist to help you work your way out of the cloud of grief.
Friends and family soon gathered and planned my dad’s funeral in one week. They came and sat around the large living room coffee table expressing thoughts and ideas. I heard my mom say she wanted it here at her house. Food arrived by the bundles and I laughed at all the hams privately. Doesn’t anyone remember we do not eat red meat? I think I stopped counting after 9 hams appeared. What is the pink giggly stuff anyway? Flowers and endless streams of plants arrive. They told us that the local flower shop ran out of flowers for our family. They had to special order more for their supply. Hundreds of people were in and out of the house. Every time someone knew came into the house they would scream in sorrow, and cry when they embraced all us. There was so much chatter that luckily my mind silenced everyone’s voices. I drank some wine that soothed the aches, but food was the furthest thing from my thoughts. I escaped the chaos of the house and sat in my dad’s backyard art studio cross-legged on the floor surrounded by blank canvases. I kept looking at one that was just freshly gessoed over with a glaze to wipe the slate clean as if he started something and did not like it. My oldest friend Kate sat across from me. I watched her blink, folding her hands over and over, pulling her hair away from her face. If she could bury her mother from breast cancer and still be standing today, I had a glimmer of hope I could get through this too. She pulled out a gray hair from my head. WE were convinced that was a sign of my dad. I looked at it and for a second wished she didn’t pull it out of my head. I was starting to look more like my dad each day as I got older. We had the same build, the same lips, and the same colored eyes. My mom blasted their favorite Opera, Modern Butterfly that I could hear from the house. She sat in front of his stereo that she had never operated and kept replaying the most devastating song from the piece. It is when the Japanese Wife of the Sea Captain finds out that her husband has left her and she commits suicide. Over and over she plays this song. It begins to haunt me. I can never see that Opera again. All I see is my mom sitting on the floor, legs to the side of her, burying her face in her hands, crying. It is all too much. I haven’t slept in days and can’t recall what my last meal was. It is amazing how the human body will naturally take care of itself when you personally “step out.” My old friend Robbie who broke my heart early in high school came over. Now a dear friend, he took me on a long walk to get away. I remember collecting a fall leaf that fell off an Oak tree and hit me in the shoulder. It was the same canary color of my dad’s silk shirt. I saved it and still have it. I did not know a dead leaf can last 15 years. So kind, he let me blow my nose into his sleeve. He spent the night with me on one side of my queen size bed. Cheryl, my best friend from high school, slept on the other side. I stared at the ceiling that evening comforted by my friends making those relaxing sleeping sounds that became so foreign to me.
The one thing no one ever prepares you for is the moment you are in the funeral home choosing a casket for your loved one. I swore that day I would never be a part of this ritual ever again. A room lined with different caskets in all colors and designs. Some very plain to the most fancy. My sister Meegan shrieks and falls to the floor. “This is so hard!” She cries. I escort her to the other side of the door and I can hear my mom say, “This is it, the Oak Casket.” We were done. That was it. They all left and I went to the office to sign off on the rest of the million of forms. This Death Certificate would become a part of a photography exhibit I would be featured in at The Uranium Museum of Art in Chicago. I took an image from the series I photographed myself in the cemetery. I was dancing on his grave symbolizing his wish he had for me to dance throughout this life. I superimposed a picture of him coming through the clouds. Flanked on the left of the photo was his death certificate that had my signature on it and on the right was my birth certificate with his signature on it.
Finally we were on route to the wake. We were all in the car together. I do not recall what was said. It was cold and raining.
I walked up to his casket and there he was. Though, if you have ever been to a funeral you can relate to this site. I hugged him. I placed my head on his chest and cried. I was embarrassed by my grief. I was thinking this might just scare my grandparents. I stayed there for another moment. His spirit was gone. I know He stood right next to us spiritually. I gave him a bouquet of flowers, markers and paintbrushes for his journey. I also included a picture of us dancing. We buried him in the rain on a cold October day. I was the last to touch his casket as it was lowered into the ground.
I started bereavement therapy shortly after that and within months began to receive the most wonderful dreams. It soon began my journey to heaven and it brought me back to the arms of my father. My first children’s book was born and published about 10 years later. One of the last dreams I had was of an angel that greeted me and said “Wake up my dear, do not sleep your life away.”
In the past 16 years since my father has died, I have kept him very much alive in me. He has visited me on a couple of occasions. His distinct Cherry tobacco pipe smoke has encompassed me like a bubble at two very distinct times in my life. Traumatic Loss was very apparent in my life. If I didn’t see the signs of post Traumatic Loss it may have taken any type of future away from me.
I realize that the journey I had to go on brought me to this beautiful day in my life presently. I recently sat in an interview with the Board of Education Art Supervisor and she asked me if I wanted a high school art position. The catch was that it had a supplement added to the position. I would have to be the cheerleading coach as well as the art teacher. I laughed, and then explained my chuckle. From one athlete to another, she understood that I never cheered for anyone or lifted a pom-pom in my life. I thought for a second as I left her office, maybe this is a sign that my dad is telling me to take another path here again 30+ years later? Most importantly, I saw for the first time a 3D image of my baby and my best girlfriend who was in the room with me whispered “he looks just like your father.” Sure enough, his little face is one from my side of the family tree. I sat and watched the Doppler from the ultra sound circle the life inside of me and thought of the beautiful life my father gave to me. He will always be a part of me and I knew the moment I felt I was pregnant that this little spirit might of met my father first on his journey down to me.
Life does not stop, but if you stop living your life, the grief has won. I will never get over his death, but I know in time I will see him again and that keeps me living.
