everything and nothing

This is part three of a story. If you’d like to start from the beginning, you can do that here. If you missed part two, you can find it here. 

We do finally make it to Colorado. It involves another canceled flight in Dallas, and another bus taking us to another airport hotel. Then there is fog in Colorado Springs so we are diverted to Denver. And finally there is a rental car, and meeting up with friends who have been waiting for us at the Colorado Springs airport.

And then through the front door of my parents’ home at last and into the arms of my smiling father. We are four and a half days late, but we make it.

Thirty-four hours later he is gone.

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Before Dad’s death, I had ideas of what life might be like for people who have lost parents, children, siblings, spouses. I couldn’t fathom how we would do it. In the final weeks of Dad’s life I remember feeling like I needed to prepare myself but I had absolutely no idea how to go about it. Maybe the biggest surprise since losing Dad has been how everything changes and yet nothing changes. Reading back on old blog posts from my time in Uganda and Rwanda before Dad’s death, I think by turns, “Who is this enthusiastic adventurous woman?” and, “Oh, so I have always struggled with this or that thing.” Death, too, comes right in the middle of everything.

I remember studying Robert Frost’s poem, “Out, Out—” about a boy who dies suddenly from a chainsaw accident. The poem ends:
 
     No one believed. They listened at his heart.
     Little—less—nothing!—and that ended it.
     No more to build on there. And they, since they
     Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs.
 
This ending horrified me as a young student. I didn't know whether to be more upset at the family for being so heartless or irritated at Frost’s low expectations about the love of a family for a lost son. Even now I find this poem very difficult. But I am a little less hard on both the family and Mr. Frost. Perhaps they did not “turn to their affairs” so much from heartlessness as from necessity. Because when we lose someone, everything changes and yet nothing changes. Our world has turned upside down and yet life keeps coming and we try to meet it.

My sister said the other day that she was glad I was writing all this down because she “just wants to hear people talk about Dad.” Yes. About nine months after Dad died, a close friend shared a funny memory of Dad from those final days. As my husband and daughter and I sat in limbo in Paris, friends and family gathered around my dad. While my friend was there one day, my brother mentioned reading that the singer Lady Gaga had to cancel some European shows because of the snow. Dad (decidedly not a fan) was finding it increasingly difficult to speak, but haltingly he said, “Maybe Phoebe will think it was worth it.” My friend, who had always appreciated Dad’s understated sense of humor, asked, “You mean she’ll think it was worth it to be stuck in Paris if it means Lady Gaga has also been stopped?” Dad just smiled.

I have memories of Dad that I come back to often. Some memories are 30 years old, like sitting on the sofa enraptured as he read the Chronicles of Narnia to my siblings and me. Or running around in the rain of a massive thunderstorm shrieking, exhilarated and frightened — with our Dad standing on the porch, laughing, egging us on. Other memories are much more recent, such as the one I shared of my dad and my little girl snuggled up together in his hospital bed. I think I needed to pause and put that there in the middle of this hard story to be reminded again of how life is a messy mix of beautiful and hard.

I think I will end this story with one final quiet, ordinary moment in the middle of everything. It is December 23 when I finally arrive in Colorado. The previous day, a kind family friend dropped by with an entire Christmas dinner already prepared for us. Ham, stuffing, sweet potatoes, pies. The works. So that when Christmas comes, we can have a “real” Christmas dinner without the need to think about it beyond warming things up. There are so many ways people can love us.

Christmas Eve is difficult. Dad dies just after midnight as Christmas arrives. At some point in the middle of the night, we all go to bed for a few hours. We wake late the next morning with Christmas Day stretching in front of us. What does one do with the first day after Dad has died?
 
It has been days since everyone sat down to a meal at the same time. As lunchtime approaches, my mother announces, “We are going to sit down and have Christmas dinner together.” She gets out a tablecloth. We lay the table with nice dishes, silverware, goblets. And we eat Christmas dinner.