My father...

[fajrdrako]

I was awakened a little while ago with a phone call from Dr. Tafigh Tabarmanaf of the Burnaby Hospital in Burnaby, British Columbia, to tell me my father died this evening at 8:15 PST.

This was not unexpected. He has been increasingly failing over the last few months, struggling with recurring pneumonia, unconscious and unresponsive for the past few weeks. They phoned me at work today to say they didn't expect him to survive the night.

And he didn't.

My relationship with my father was - 'troubled', I suppose is the best word for it. He was not an easy father to have. But this evening I have felt more at peace with him than I have at any time since early childhood. I've been feeling sad and restless over the course of the evening.... but no longer troubled by the anger or guilt or hurt I had felt about him for decades. He loved me, despite his problems, and I loved him. Despite mine.

My Papa: born January 8, 1919 in Leicester, England; died July 25, 2008 in Burnaby, BC.

Death. Never easy.

Comments

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I went through a whole panoply of emotions when my father died, sometimes at the same time.

Yes, me too. Some very conflicting emotions. Funny what a difference it makes - how different the perspective becomes.

I finally came to an understanding that my adult self was glad he had reached the peace he wanted, and even a bit relieved for the difficult parts to be done with, while my little girl self wanted my Daddy. Not entirely the Daddy he had been, but the one I always hoped for.

That is so very well expressed - exactly the way I felt. Feel. Felt.

Thanks so much for saying this.

[devohoneybee.livejournal.com]

You're so welcome. Did you ever read Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scot Card? Yeah, I know, the guy is problematic as hell, but there's something to that book, about speaking the truth about a person's life when they've passed. About how all the parts, the good and bad, make up their humanity, and by speaking them, we find our own wholeness in all the reactions we have/had to that person.

I know what you mean about the perspective changing, and I think that has most to do with all the things, despite everything I knew and understood, that some part of me still hoped might change. How we live not just in the present and in our construction and stories of the past but also in what we imagine might be IF... And how with death, the IF is closed, definitively.

I dreamed about him for about 3 years. The IF is closed but the healing can and does continue. *hug*

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

I agree that Orson Scott Card is problematic and I can hardly bear to read his work any more, but he's done some magnificent writing. I like your comments on Speaker for the Dead.

Yes, the closing of the "if" for the future makes a lot of difference. It hasn't changed the past, but I don't need to worry about new eventualities now, or anything between me and my father in future. It's all down to me now - he's out of the equation, except as a memory, and that memory is now free of the kind of worry that was attached to it before.

Yes, I dreamed about my father last night. I suppose it was inevitable. What was surprising was... that it was a good dream, a happy one.

[devohoneybee.livejournal.com]

is there an addy off-journal i can send you some poems about that whole process for me? you can email me at devosity@earthlink.net

[fajrdrako.livejournal.com]

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