The Dance Continues
Adjusting as we go
Why can’t I dream about dad? my daughter Sofie asks.
I pause, realizing we share the same predicament.
I think we are too close to him. Maybe our minds are trying to protect us, I say.
The first time I spoke with a medium she told me Eric was visiting me in my dreams. When I said I couldn’t remember any of them, she explained that sometimes it can feel like there’s a thick cloth draped over your eyes when you are experiencing deep loss.
I have friends and family who have dreams with him. They feel like visitations. In one, Sofie, my friend and I are sitting outside of a house. It’s open on one side. We can see Eric inside the house. My friend watches me saunter towards him. We begin dancing together. When she looks again, he is no longer there, instead I’m dancing with Sofie.
She said it felt like Eric was saying he wanted me to dance through life with her.
It reminded me of a time after the hospital. Eric and I loved Ella Fitzgerald’s album Live in Berlin. We were slow dancing in the living room, holding onto each other, swaying to the music. Sofie came out of her room and joined us.
Lately, she had been upset over the strange symptoms he had been exhibiting. I talked to her about being patient with him. Her joining us felt like a softening.
That was the last time we danced together.
I never imagined I’d have the relationship I have with her now. After he died, we clung to each other madly like survivors in a shipwreck. It broke us open. Truth became the language we spoke most often.
Friends and family worried about her because they never heard her talk about him.
With me, it was different. We never stopped talking about him. What do you think Dad would say I should do; can you ask him? Or I’m sure Dad would want me to go to the concert. He was a fan too you know.
I brought her with me to a film festival earlier this year. I met a lot of people and found myself talking about Eric, the book I wrote, and the disease that killed him. She stood beside me, quietly taking it in.
I asked her once,
Why don’t you talk about dad with your friends?
They wouldn’t understand, she said.
She’s right, they wouldn’t. Still, I encouraged her.
But this year, she surprised me.
She sent me a project to proofread for her Integrative Seminar class. The question was: Where do you get your strength?
When I think about what has made me strong, I don’t think of a single moment. I think of a certain event, certain people, and places scattered across my childhood and high school years. My dad’s presence, and then his absence, shaped me more than anything else.
As I read her project, it felt like a mini version of my book. I was stunned. She had never read my manuscript, but I shared a few poems with her.
My Parents At night, I heard them laughing in the kitchen. The clanking of plates being washed. Sometimes I would scream for them to come into my room after I was asleep because I wanted to be included. They would come and tuck me in together, Singing me songs my dad wrote for me like, Mr Bluebird, or Candle Girl. They never fought, Their love was permanent, As steady as the clock ticking on the wall.
I thought of parents who never fought! Of course we did. How often do we paint pictures of the dead as perfect beings? Still, our love was as steady as the ticking clock in her poem.
Singing goodnight to her as a couple was one of my favorite daily routines. Usually after the song, when we were about to leave her room, she would ask a question that would involve a very long answer. I’d leave knowing Eric could handle it. He was the more vocal one in the relationship. Thirty minutes later, he’d be done.
I am now the one answering the questions. One time I gave her the short answer while I tucked her in. I walked into the bathroom only to have the lights flicker and hear Eric saying,
Come on, you can do better than that.
The Call
Friday, May 27th, was the day I had waited for years.
My favorite show, Stranger Things, was dropping its fourth season after three long years.
It was also the day my mom was supposed to get a call from the doctor.
The call that would tell us what was wrong with my dad.
My aunt picked me up from school.
I got home to see my uncle pacing in the living room,
phone pressed to his ear.
I walked toward the bathroom,
But the door was locked.
I knocked.
My mom opened it.
Tears dripped down her face.
That’s when she told me.
My dad had a fatal disease.
He would be gone in less than a month.
I locked myself in my room.
Cried for hours, lying on the floor,
feeling the world collapse in silence around me.
Telling her was the most gut-wrenching thing I’ve ever had to do. All the bullshit in the world was just that, bullshit. But this. There were no words.
My Strength
Even in the darkest moments, I found pieces of myself I didn’t know were there.
If you were to tell younger me I was going to lose a parent,
I would have thought I would never recover and fall into depression for the rest of my life.
From my dad’s laughter to my mom’s quiet strength,
from tears in the bathroom to the stories shared in grief group,
I learned that being strong doesn’t mean feeling no pain.
It’s getting through it, holding onto the love that’s still here,
and knowing that even when someone is gone,
they’re still part of me.
This is my strength.
I cried when I read her project. Even my own daughter, who I thought I knew, had surprised me in the most unexpected way. She tends to come across as a typical teenager obsessed with music and TV shows, but deep inside there is a maturity and wisdom few get to witness.
June will be four years since he died.
How did I get here? Sometimes it feels like a car ride where your mind goes blank, and somehow, you’ve arrived at your destination, unscathed. But then I remember, the work I’ve done. The work she’s done, to do more than just survive. To thrive, despite everything. The dance continues. I take her hand, swaying, adjusting as we go.