In the Dark

"When you can't look on the bright side, I will sit with you in the dark."--author Unknown

The sun had yet to crest the horizon as I sat in the nearly dark room on worn carpet next to the body of my father. His skin was still warm, my hand touching the top of his head. If I live to be a hundred, I will never forget the baby soft tufts of what little hair he had left as they skimmed my fingertips. I shake as I type, the memory still fresh, angry and raw, shake in the same way I did on that dirty floor next to a man I didn't understand and yet still love dearly. Gone. In the dark, no sighs or whispers. No quiet goodbye. And inside I feel empty and full in equal measure. I catalogued every mark and bruise I could see on what used to be his very strong body. I know how furious he was that his body was failing him, offended that the Universe would play such a nasty trick. "Stubborn," I kept saying in my mind. "Stubborn to the very end. Ornery and difficult to get close to." But girls and their daddys...what are ya gonna do? That's a unique kind of bond, even when it doesn't fully "take".

I don't know how one can be so angry and full of love at the same time for another human being, and yet here I sit feeling both with hurricane force ferocity. You'd think the anger would cancel out the other. It doesn't. Somewhere beneath the turmoil, the love remains. And since the moment I felt his spirit pass beyond this world, I've been busy...like some woman possessed to get "things" done, because when I am still in the dark, in the quiet, my brain latches on to a level of sad I wish to God I didn't know. Pain changes people. It exposes our vulnerabilities for the whole world to see, which is probably why my stubborn ol' coot of a father shoved nearly all of his feelings into a dusty box, never to be seen nor heard from again. I told him once that if I tried to do that it would poison me, eat me alive from the inside. He just shook his head at me in that way he did when he was ridiculously frustrated with the daughter he never understood. Honestly, I think most of the time he had absolutely no clue what to do with me. Many of the layers that make up who I am are the complete antithesis of the man he stared at in the mirror every morning. "Confounding girl," he would say. And that's okay. Somehow or another we made peace with most of our differences.

In the days and weeks ahead, while I go about the business of settling his Earthy affairs, it is that peace that will comfort me. It is the love of those who were dear to him, dear to me, that will carry me when I want to fall. And it is the brother I have finally begun getting to know that is the shining gift in the midst of all this sorrow. Some moments, it feels as if I will just be sad forever. Fortunately, I have enough life experience to know that sooner or later the sun comes out, chasing away the dark. Safe journey ol' mountain man. If you get the chance, will you please take my son fishing?

Love you, Dad.

Always,
A.

In memory of Michael Joseph Brown April 27, 1948-April 29, 2017.