Tag Archives: loss of parent

Tears, Songs, and Hearing His Voice

26 Sunday May 2019

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This morning, I supercried at church – weeping like a small child.

The song was “Let There Be Peace on Earth.” Beyond the voices of the choir, I could hear the sound of my dad’s voice…

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me…

My dad would sing the song with every fiber of his being. His (probably) tenor voice would sing each syllable with intent. As a civics teacher, a Genocide survivor’s son, and a person who believed Christianity was an active faith, the song was probably the best representation of what he believed.

Let peace begin with me, let this be the moment now…

And so, when this song is sung as it was today with the choir, every piece of my being remembered him. I remembered his articulation of faith, of his voice singing a song that was a prayer in his heart. I remembered our time sitting next to one another in church as my faith grew next to his more matured, more articulated faith.

Songs connect us with people and the past. Of moments of joy and of losses. We know what we no longer have, but we know that we’ve been given the gift of something spectacular – the holiness of song, of love, of spirit.

To take each moment, and live each moment, in peace eternally-

Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.

 

Grieving the Saints

01 Thursday Nov 2018

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Death’s bite clenched my heart again this year. While the loss of my dad stings even almost 14 months after his death, I’ve had three friends pass in the last week.

The third friend died on November first: All Saints’ Day.

The thick fog of grief hovered as the new month was ushered into our lives. From the deaths of years ago to the crisp new blustery winds of grief’s winter, my heart feels deep sadness. Even when the people who die aren’t the closest of friends or relatives, often we feel off. Like a mild cold or minor infection in our bodies, something is not quite right. We aren’t crying for hours, but our minds are distracted.

This is grief too. Even when someone isn’t close, their loss impacts our world because our connection with one another is deep and eternal.

For all the saints, we give gratitude. For all the saints, we sing a bittersweet melody. For all the saints, we celebrate blissful memories.

 

The Dead Dads Club

16 Saturday Jun 2018

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Years ago, I came across a scene of Grey’s Anatomy in which Dr. George O’Malley had just lost his father. He was standing outside of the hospital when Dr. Cristina Yang approaches him. The two engage in the following conversation:

CRISTINA: “There’s a club. The Dead Dads Club. And you can’t be in it until you’re in it. You can try to understand, you can sympathize. But until you feel that loss… My dad died when I was nine. George, I’m really sorry you had to join the club.”
GEORGE: “I… I don’t know how to exist in a world where my dad doesn’t.”
CRISTINA: “Yeah, that never really changes.”

This scene rapidly came to mind on September 18, 2017. Early that morning, I became part of the Dead Dads Club. In a fog of exhaustion, I was thrown into a fraternity of humans wandering in grief.

It’s a permanent club with new members joining us every day. Since my induction, I’ve noticed more friends joining the club. Some joined after their dads perished following a long illness. Others were whisked into the club after a shocking death. I wish I could close the door on their membership. I wish I could delay their painful initiation. And yet, they joined us in the mournful ranks.

This year, many of us are enduring our first Fathers’ Day in this club. We scurry past the Fathers’ Day cards at the store. We try to forget what this Sunday is. We may be grateful that we don’t have to go to places like church where Father’s Day is all over the place. We hope we can make it ten minutes at a time throughout the day, knowing it will be a full year before the next one.

Ugh. Just ugh. I hate all of this.

Like George O’Malley said, I don’t know how to exist in a world where my dad isn’t. I still feel like he’s just in the other room when I talk to my mom. I still feel like I’ll catch up with him a little later. I still want to call him when I hear something happening on the news or when I remember something I learned in his Civics class.

But he’s no longer here. And I have to live with this for the remainder of my life here on earth. Part of my brain just can’t grasp this. I don’t think I ever will fully wrap my mind around the world without my father.

So here I am with my fellow “club” members. We all don’t want to be a part of this club. But we are glad that we don’t have to journey alone – not that we want others to have to go through this pain. If we all have to face the pain, at least we can be there for one another. I give thanks for the friends who reached out this week who happen to be enduring similar pain. I give thanks for the friends who sat and waited at the funeral home – just in case I needed them at any point. They are my cohort, and with them we will make it.

So for the day or whenever I need, I rely on God’s mercy and grace to allow what tears may need to fall. I give myself permission to reach out to others in this dreadful club. Because through God and neighbor, we may find some peace along the way.

First Birthday Gone

07 Wednesday Feb 2018

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Today’s the first time we exist in a February 7 world without my dad in it. And as many of you are well too familiar, this is bizarre.

Most years, I would try to call my dad at midnight. Of course, this would be 11pm CST, a point that wouldn’t matter to him.

Last night, there was no one I could call to wish those birthday greetings.

Dad was born on the seventh day in February in the seventh hour. He used to indicate how the number sevens were lucky for him.

Today would have been his 77th birthday. So on this seventh day of February in which my dad would have been 77, make this world a stronger place. Tell someone what a fantastic job they are doing. Call you congressional leaders to speak your needs and the needs of those marginalized. Watch the news, register to vote, learn the faces of our congressional leaders, or just be a good human today. That’s what Vincent Torigian would want for his birthday.

And Dad, as you abide on that side of heaven, may you feel the love that all of us are sending you on your birthday. Miss you so much.

The Year I Became Old

04 Thursday Jan 2018

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I became old in 2017.

Now, I fully do not think that I am “old.” But some turning point happened during the year – of course due to life events.

First and foremost, my dad died. I’m sure I would attain a sense of aging based on that event alone. But because of failed cell phone connections at 5:30am and my mom not receiving emergency calls, I was the one who had to make split-second decisions on my dad’s care when he went into cardiac arrest.

“Intubate him. Do what you can. Anything.” These were pretty much my words when I answered that phone early on that September morning.

When you are forced to make life and death decisions for your parents, you release the remnants of any previous relationship you have with them.  You’ve “adulted” in the fullest sense of the word.

Secondly, last year was the time period when I transformed from simply becoming aware of my upcoming menopause to experiencing the pangs of its birth. With periods becoming irregular – heavy or nonexistent – I noticed the small to large ways my body was changing.

Hello extra ten pounds! Was that a hot flash? I didn’t realize my anxiety would return…

“When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.” – – 1 Corinthians 13:11.

Maybe it’s one event or two that happen within a short time of one another. Something shifts in our mind, and we no longer see the trajectory of life in the same way.

Now is the time to accomplish what I feel called to do.

Now is the time to take the dreams lodged in my mind and bring them to reality.

Being a 44 year old in 2017 beginning the journey to menopause and losing a parent was transformative in ways that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. And, yet, most of us have to face these types of changes.

And this is when we shed our old ways and prioritize the elements in our lives so that on our deathbeds there will be minimal to no regrets.

I head into 2018 with words like “resilience” and “survive” on my mind. After a year like 2017, I no longer see this endless time ahead of me. This new year must reflect my new mindset as I care for myself in new ways, love in deeper way, and carpe diem like I haven’t before.

 

Thanksgiving’s Empty Seat

23 Thursday Nov 2017

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God, you fill in all spaces and abide in all times, and yet today, once space will feel every kind of void.

Dad’s seat.

There will be feelings and memories and all sorts of things we want to pile onto that seat. We will fill that chair with tears and sighs and our still-stunned hearts.

How could we be here today, God? No. This can’t be…

(There is no other way around it: today will suck.)

But even as our hearts are breaking throughout the day, help us to fill Dad’s plate with delicious memories. May our time together today be one where we embed the joyful Thanksgiving moments of the past into our souls, recalling moments of laughter and creating new mirthful memories.

Amen.

A Prayer as I Remember That Moment

12 Thursday Oct 2017

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God who abides fully in the present,
I keep recalling that moment in my mind.

You know the one – the phone call.
The five thirty am buzzing which jolted me awake,
Wondering why and who and why again as I stirred from sleep.

Deciding I needed to pick it up because five-one-three numbers at five-thirty aren’t wrong numbers.
Thinking that it was him just calling because he was awake in his room,
And for one split second not wanting to deal with an early morning conversation.

For that moment, God, I am deeply sorry.

Oh how now I wish it was dad wanting a five-thirty am phone conversation.
How I would sacrifice an entire night of sleep for that discussion.

How I would rather have heard his voice saying “I just wanted to call” rather than the nurse informing me “his condition has changed.”

How I would have rather heard his voice asking me if I was awake rather than a stranger ask me if I wanted him intubated.

How that moment the last remaining garments of childhood which I still wore my soul stopped fitting.  How the tables turned and I was the one who made the decisions about his well being.

How the summertime of my life ended and the gray days of autumn begun.  How the warmth of daylight turned into the cold shadows of night.

Yes, God, that moment turned into all of this for me.  Innocence lost.  Childhood firmly found in the rearview mirror.  Daughterhood shifted.

God, there is little you can do for me to change my memory of that moment.  But, if you can, fill my soul with a little additional peace each time I remember it.

In time, this moment will lose some of its intense chill.  And maybe I’ll find a new level of innocence.

Amen.

A Prayer After Grief’s Trigger-Full Day

11 Wednesday Oct 2017

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God of the rising flood waters, yesterday was a day full of triggers.

It was the anniversary of his rapid decline. And a hospital visit three doors down from his room. And a conversation about what a father of the bride would wear at the wedding.

Intense sessions of crying drowned parts of my day. Yet tear after tear, I made it through.

Yesterday proved I’m nothing less than resilient. But I’m strong because you are my partner in this, God.

There will be more of these days ahead, and my lamenting may melt my heart. There will be evenings that linger forever as each tomorrow seems to delay its arrival.

But morning will appear. And the sun will break through morning’s densely hovering fog.

And you will be with me.

Amen.

A One-Month Prayer

10 Tuesday Oct 2017

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Divine Crafter of Time and Space,
It’s been a month.

Now, I know that it hasn’t been a full month since he breathed his last breath,
Or the last beat of his heart,
Or the very last time I saw him “alive,”
But a month ago we lost the him we knew and a life of familiarity.

We lost his laughter and his political grumblings,
The ability to ask him one more time what the Tin-Man symbolized in the Wizard of Oz,
As well as questions we never knew to ask him beforehand.

We lost his voice.
Of course, we have recordings from the past thirty years-
Videotapes from birthdays and Christmases.  Even a Facebook video or two on a needed Civics lesson.
But recordings, though sacred, just aren’t the same.

One month ago today,
I lost the blessing of receiving his hugs
And his constant reminders to gargle with saltwater
And to get my oil changed and have all of the fluid levels checked.

I lost the ability to see his eyes not only open
But look and interact with the people surrounding him.

His spirit ascended while we were left to descend into the valley of grief.

So until I can climb out of this valley under the dome of cloud-filled skies,
God grant me the strength I need to take life 15 minutes at a time.

Someday, we will find ourselves on even land again,
Even occasionally making our ways to mountaintops.
It will be a bittersweet journey upward and onward,
As I realize Your strength and his love are on this pilgrimage with me.

Amen.

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A Blunt Prayer in Grief’s Spiritual Block

09 Monday Oct 2017

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Hi God…

Where in the hell are you???

Seriously.

(I’m truly sorry to be so curt. I know you are here. In my mind, I know you are. I keep telling myself this over and over.)

But I must ask: is it grief that has taken a seat between us? Had grief become a wall, a partition that divides me from seeing you?

Then why are you not removing this barrier?

Again I say it: I know you are here. I know you are blanketing me with peace and filling my soul with strength. But from my throne of melancholy, my view is limited.

Shove me off of this throne of despair and may I find a new seat that will reflect your presence. Open my soul as a third eye- one that will see you surrounding me when the wilderness of grief becomes to arid or the swamps of mourning drown my sorrow-filled soul.

Amen.