![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
for my dad
Sep. 13th, 2006 11:33 amMy father died a year ago today.
I'm grieving, yes, but not as much as I had expected to be. Part of that is undoubtedly holding emotions in check, not descending into them so that I can do my work, be here for my family, do what needs to be done. It's something I learned from my mother--you keep going.
However, I also realized that I've been doing a fair bit of my grieving, of going through my emotions, in public. I think of the stories I've written this last year and a few things stand out: the scene in my "crazy index" story that was taken from seeing my father lying in the hospital bed as well as the death of Amelia's parents, Lien-Yi's loss of her mother, the pig flying humor that my dad would have loved. It hasn't touched everything directly, but it's there.
I miss him. I still haven't had the courage to pick up the book he was in the middle of reading when he died (The Compass Rose by Gail Dayton), but I think I'm getting there. Tonight, as usual, I shall tuck my son into bed and sing him the lullaby my father sang to me and my brothers and know that in some way, he is still here with me, in my memories, the things I learned from him and the things I did because I was rebelling against him.
"The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity." -- Jean Paul Richter
I'm grieving, yes, but not as much as I had expected to be. Part of that is undoubtedly holding emotions in check, not descending into them so that I can do my work, be here for my family, do what needs to be done. It's something I learned from my mother--you keep going.
However, I also realized that I've been doing a fair bit of my grieving, of going through my emotions, in public. I think of the stories I've written this last year and a few things stand out: the scene in my "crazy index" story that was taken from seeing my father lying in the hospital bed as well as the death of Amelia's parents, Lien-Yi's loss of her mother, the pig flying humor that my dad would have loved. It hasn't touched everything directly, but it's there.
I miss him. I still haven't had the courage to pick up the book he was in the middle of reading when he died (The Compass Rose by Gail Dayton), but I think I'm getting there. Tonight, as usual, I shall tuck my son into bed and sing him the lullaby my father sang to me and my brothers and know that in some way, he is still here with me, in my memories, the things I learned from him and the things I did because I was rebelling against him.
"The words that a father speaks to his children in the privacy of home are not heard by the world, but, as in whispering galleries, they are clearly heard at the end, and by posterity." -- Jean Paul Richter
