“Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give, but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9657488-grief-i-ve-learned-is-really-just-love-it-s-all-the
― Jamie Anderson
This started as a FB post, but I quickly realized it would be a little longer than I like for that platform.
My father’s death anniversary was about a week ago. 25 years ago, I didn’t know it, but he died on May 24, 1988. For a long time, I didn’t even know his birthday. I hear he loved me. It’s complicated.
I remember the day my mother told me. It was sometime in the summer. I sat at the kitchen table at my grandparent’s house and consumed an entire gallon of Sunny Delight (more on that later). And I cried. I cried inconsolable tears. I cried for a man I can’t say I knew. From what I understand, he never denied me. But I didn’t know him. Can’t say I thought that much about him. By then, I knew he existed, but I only have two memories of him. I remember the first time I met him, he came to my grandmother’s house, and they introduced him to me. My father was in the Army and had been stationed at Fort Meade. My father was in the Army and had been stationed at Fort Meade. I remember him sitting in the chair in the living room, and letting me sit on his lap and remove every single service ribbon from his uniform and try to put them back. I think I was about 4. My next memory of his was outside the house and involved a bike that may or may not have had training wheels.
As an adult, I would eventually figure out that I was grieving. But I wasn’t grieving him. Instead, I was grieving the fact that I would never get to know him. While I don’t think I had really thought about getting to know him, I think deep down inside, I was grieving the loss of learning about the parts of me that came from him.
This message was sparked by a FB memory of my mother calling my job because something happened at my campus and hit the news. She called to check on me. My mother struggled with mental illness, but there was one thing constant in her reality, she loved me and always worried about me.
Now, back to the Sunny Delight. It’s funny how your friends remember things you don’t even remember telling them. I have absolutely no recollection of telling Christine about drinking Sunny Delight when I found out my father died. But at the next two points in my life, when someone I loved died, Christine brought me Sunny Delight in whatever size she could find. I don’t even drink the stuff anymore, but when my grandmother died, I remember she showed up with Steak Fish (because no one can season fish like her mother- I just had some the other day) and 2 bottles of Sunny D.
I’ve been thinking (dreaming) about the acknowledgments/dedication for my dissertation. It’s made me think a lot about the folks who aren’t physically here to see me get to this finish line. But the more I think about it, I know there are things that they have given me that will always be with me. I’m in contact with my sister and, through conversation, have found several traits that must have come from our father. And the lessons and love my family, and Christine left me with will never go away.
Lifting as I Climb 