Spring Cleaning

I was on the phone with my sister a few days ago. The topic of our blog came up, and S joked wryly that we didn’t have to think too hard about the subject of our next entries. Today is the 20th anniversary of our father’s death, you see. But I rankled at her suggestion that of course we would be marking two decades of his absence. In fact, I thought, hadn’t we said plenty already about our loss? How much more was there to write about his early and sudden disappearance from our lives? We have already acknowledged how quickly our worldview changed, and how at the same time we also, unfairly, lost our mother to her grief. Our blog posts have been studded regularly with childhood memories, nostalgia for what was and ruminations of what might have been.
“I don’t want to write about it,” I said to her, warming up to my indignation, “I’m tired of it. I’m tired of wondering how different my life would have been if he hadn’t died. I’m tired of being sad at every milestone that he, once again, isn’t around for. I’m tired of spending my energy wondering about all the things we don’t and never will know about him. I don’t want to spend any more time stuck in the past.”
Quietly, my sister replied, “Maybe that’s what you should write about.”
Avoidance comes naturally to me. Maybe I’ll just play websudoku instead of writing, I think to myself. As I type this, I am cringing with discomfort. Which is how I know I have something I should probably try to express.
I want to move on.
I will never be able to say goodbye to my father. I don’t expect to move forward without taking note of what he might have thought. But I want to find a comfortable nook in my brain where I can place the feelings of sadness and loss that will never go away. I am ready to give them a space where they don’t have to rattle around and catch me off-guard.
Let me build a little cupboard in my head. No, I need to be more specific. I am picturing an antique Swedish cabinet with glass doors. It will be so pretty I will want to look at it regularly, but it will keep everything contained so things aren’t loose to roam, unwelcome. When a thought or memory pops into my head, I can put it on a shelf and shut the door. There, I’ll say, this is your home now. The funny bits and humorous pieces will live side by side with the shards of wishes and preserved regrets. It will make an amazing and beautiful assortment, worthy of the man my father was.
Maybe then, with his corner in my head newly tidied, I’ll feel freed up to look around me with a fresh, unburdened perspective and ask,”Now what?”