The Words That Remain

 

Sometimes words tumble out

Falling over themselves

Like marble spilling

Across a hardwood floor

Sometimes words dry up
Like sand in the dessert
Hot, arid, blowing in the wind
Tears stinging your eyes

Sometimes words are like water
Gushing, flowing, roaring
Breaking through rocks
Reshaping the geography

Sometimes words burn hot
Like burning lava
Or like the sun
Slowly growing hotter

Sometimes words get cold
Like the chill of first frost
Sitting on the tip of your nose
Biting your toes

Sometimes the right words

Are nowhere to be found

While the wrong ones

Buzz like angry hornets

When all the words
In the this world
Has been spoken and heard

Only silence will remain

These three words will be true
After this heart stops beating 
The silence will forever speak
To you my dear heart, “I love you.”

And Life Just Keeps Getting (Adjective)

It's nearly midnight and I'm smack dab 4 weeks into Covid19 shelter-in mandate in New York City.  I'm not going to waste words explaining that.  Not because it's late and I'm feeling lazy and tired but I just can't be bothered.  You know what I mean.  I know you know what I mean.  There.  You're all caught up.  Did you miss me?  I didn't even know I was gone.  The time between last post and this one is technically two whole years not the few minutes it shows stamped.  A lot has happened since the last post.

Since my visit to the England back in 2018, I have had hand, foot, and mouth disease.  Yup, it's real.  Only the parents whose children got this will understand.  Both my hands and feet lost all nails and skin.  What did I learn from this experience?  The dead skin on our feet are like shoes and we do need all those calluses on our feet to stand up in the shower without falling.  So at the age of 40 I got brand new hands and feet.  Nails included.  It was loads of fun when my nails kept falling off.  But I'm looking at the bright side. 

I had a friend of my husband's pass through my house so I thought it would be a great idea to help out a single mother and daughter.  That was towards the end of 2018.  They are still here.  Not my best decision looking back on it now.  But who am I to turn my back on a friend. 

I also lost a rescue puppy.  I should have known better than to responds to a pet adoption advertised via social media.  When we drove to some small pet shop basement in Brooklyn, I should have hesitated.  But my son was convinced this was going to be our dog.  It lasted 10 days and 8 of them was in the animal hospital across the street.  There is nothing quite like getting a phone call from your spouse to tell you the dog didn't make it. 

The hardest part was explaining to my son that God answered his prayer for a puppy.  Before you decide to crucify me over that statement, let me try to explain.  My son prayed for a puppy.  He chose the puppy.  I made the rest happen.  Puppy was sick.  Because my son chose that dog, it died happy, with a name, and a family that loved him and mourned him.  His name was Loki. 

We did get a new puppy.  But I'll have to regale you with Macy's life later.  Moving on. 

I broke my left pinky in 2019.  A week later, my mother-in-law passed away after her three year battle with cancer.  I won't lie.  I miss that woman.  I met her in 1999.  I had her in my life for two decades.  I never would have my family if I never met her.  I'm not ashamed to admit that I married my husband because I wanted his mom for myself.  She flew out to New York after my mother passed away in 2014.  I haven't quite had the chance to properly mourn her.  Life has been adamantly relentless.

So here we are, Covid19, the word trying desperately not to go to hell in a hand basket.  I'm working from home.  I can't complain because that means I'm still earning a paycheck.  My two young children are learning remotely.  That experience hasn't exactly been a walk in the park but at least they don't hate being stuck indoors with their parents and each other.  The world has gone mad for toilet paper and cleaning supplies.  And I'm realizing, far too many people in my family and social circle are essential workers and I could very well not see some of them when this pandemic ends. 

I won't lie.  I despise the idiot in chief for how he's made the situation worse.  I am loving the governor.  He makes me feel safe, informed, and sane.  I go to grocery stores early in the morning and in a crowd I have panic attacks.  I think we're all going to need mental help in some form or another.

Despite all that, I am grateful to this pandemic that will take more lives before it's done.  The last time I got to spend quality time with my children was after they were born.  They are growing up.  My oldest will begin middle school next year.  The years ahead will fly as swiftly as the last decade has gone.  But for now, I am stuck at home, hiding from the world in the heart of my family. 

I have learned to count my joy in the midst of this difficult season.  That is why, after all this time, I'm still standing even if its on my knees. 

This is my journal.  This is my reminder.  Life hasn't defeated me yet.  I will continue to whisper my prayers into the fury of the storm.  

An Old Post I Forgot to Publish...

Dear Reader,

Have I disappointed you with my lack of content?  Let's pretend I have since you haven't said otherwise.  We'll pretend to care or not care, silently across the vast expanse of the internet.

I visited the Science Museum in London today and it has set those thought trains into motion.  Returning to my in-laws, the smell of dinner cooking in the kitchen is tormenting my hunger riddled stomach.  The damn thought trains are sounding the horns, demanding to leave the station.  The oldest is playing chess with his father.  He got into this game a few years ago, when he was about five and his world was ripped out from beneath this feet.  A part of me is glad my father is dead because he isn't here to drop advise on my son's opponent on how to beat him.  Or maybe he only did that to me.  This thought makes me angry.

Would I have been a decent chess player if my father had only sat down and played with me?  Whenever I played chess, I remember being desperate to win.  It's not a pleasant feeling, trying to beat your father because he was helping someone else trying to beat you.

I had that feeling in the museum too.  It reminded me of the anger with which my cousin educated me of the atrocities visited upon East Pakistan by West Pakistan which would eventually result in Bangladesh being formed.  I viewed the science and technology exhibit and a photography exhibit on India.  It's difficult to remain interested and detached when you realize that this is your homeland and the man you married belongs to the culture that oppressed this land (along with so many others) for the sole purpose of profit.

So much anger and pain; it's not new.  The current baboon sitting in the Oval or this backwards move of Brexit, they may not be the imperialists oppressing the colonials anymore, but they are still those who have who would take from those who have not.  News just travels too fast these days.  Maybe these atrocities are visible.

It's a new year and maybe I should make a resolution.  I know myself better.  Resolutions are for those who aren't afraid of commitment.  So I will focus on this anger that has come to the surface on the heels of memories remembered, historical context realized, and address that.  Anger, stoked like a low banked glowing ember can flare up and become an all consuming flame.  It become necessary to turn the other cheek in these instances.

Its easy to say you're sorry or ask for forgiveness.  The real effort comes from those who must forgive lest they become entrapped in a trap from which there is no escape.  Those who have wronged you will think a simple request for forgiveness cancels the debt.  They very rarely give us (those to who this debt is owed) credit for finding the courage to forgive.

It struck me, while visiting that exhibit, the pain so many people have suffered at the hands of their oppressor and will continue to do so.  Pain often encloses us, walls us off.  Forgiveness is the only key that will unlock that door.  So I'm choosing to forgive my father for deliberately trying to help my opponents beat me at chess.  Maybe the best way to exercise the demons of my memory is to start playing the game.

There goes the dinner bell.  Time to partake of the delicious smells that have been coming out of the kitchen.  

Breaking My Silence

I'm a writer.  Through my words I have learned to give voice to those who can't speak.  I have struggled to give voice to the silent scream of pain that is shattering my heart and soul still.  

Grief is not a stranger but an old friend, a compatriot, a bosom fellow, the proverbial thorn in your flesh you can never quite get out.  

This is my journal.  I write my thoughts here.  But I can't really speak of this grief, not here.  I hope, at least for now, you'll follow my words as I write my father's Swan Song

The First of Many Birthdays to Come

There is a first time for everything.  I dreaded this day as none I have ever dreaded before.  The last time I dreaded a day, I happened to have a calculus exam.  I was so anxious that I ended up in the emergency room.  Being in the hospital made me so anxious that my anxiety over the exam was cured and I left before ever seeing a doctor.  I never said I wasn't weird.

Today is my birthday.  This is the day I have dreaded for the last three months.  Today, the day of my birth came and went the same way as every other day of my life.  Only today, I am an orphan, without parents.  The word still startles me because I'm an adult.  If you're going to be an orphan, it's better to be an adult.  Yet, does anyone ever get used to being an orphan?  It immediately makes you first generation.  There is no one living in my immediate family.  Both my grandparents and parents are now dead.  I've gone from being part of a three generation family to just two.

If this wasn't difficult enough, there has been so many other things, small and big that are the fallout when the older generation is wiped out.  It was very different when my mom died.  My dad was still here.  Now he's gone.  In a recent conversation with a friend, I went back to that moment when I first learned of my dad's death from my niece.  I realized, as the words poured out of my mouth, that I was fighting, like a fish swimming upstream, against the current, to get away from that memory.  I have maintained my smile.  Those who knew him and miss him, need it.  In private, with tears poured before the throne of grace, I have grieved; I am still grieving.

My dad was my first love, my hero, a perfect example of my heavenly father.  He was a man of his word.  I could stake my life on his word.  When someone dies, it is their final act.  If they die the way my dad did, so much remains unfinished.  My mother finished her business before she died.  My dad never got the chance.  Yet, looking over these last three months and the pain I have endured, I see clearer his inheritance to me; he left me with the strength of his unshakable faith.

There were moments when I couldn't think straight or see clear the road ahead because of my pain.  It was all I could do to keep my smile painted on as I moved through the day.  I have been often complimented for my strength and fortitude.  I'm not strong.  Neither am I weak.  I am not brave, but sometimes, I have been very foolish.  Yet, though it all, when you saw me being strong and courageous, it was God who was carrying me on his shoulders so I could keep my head above the tide of grief that has been threatening to overwhelm me these last two years.

It has been an adjustment, this orphan life that I live.  This year was harder than the two that has gone before.  I couldn't see beyond my pain to the father who had generously poured his love into my life.  Today I was given a gift beyond price.  With my eyes wide open, I saw before me the tale of my life.  Suddenly the voice of my most avid critic became a silent din, a barely imperceptible hum and I caught a glimpse of God's plan.

I chose long ago to walk the road less travel.  It has been fraught with thorns and brambles galore.  Yet, through it all, God has always shown me just where to step.  I have cried out my pain, my anger, my hurt, and every emotion under heavens.  But through it all, I chose to grab a hold of God and keep holding on, specially when my grip was slipping.  God kept his word, he worked all things for the good of those who trust him.  I see his hand leading me out through even this.  I'm not quite there yet, but I'm more hopeful now that I was before.

This is the first birthday of the rest of my life.  So I would like to end this day by thanking my well wishers, those who have loved me continuously over the years and have kept me covered in prayer.  I am grateful for your affection.  But mostly, I am filled with a sense of gratitude for the one who died for me so that I could live.  Faith is not something you keep on the shelf and look at and admire; only when it is tested, under immense pressure does the transformation begin.

As I finish writing this, I must admit that my heart is lighter than it has ever been.  I feel the buds of hope blooming, very much like a sleeping tree to the first heat of sprint.  I have been walking through this valley longer that I would have liked.  But His presence is beside me, leading through still waters.  My soul is slowly being restored.  May this birthday be the beginning of many such still to come.  I'm choosing to be optimistic.  It's a brand new birthday, new life, and a new beginning.  

I write because nothing else makes sense

From you I learned that the pen is mightier than the sword.  Maybe that’s why I’ve poured so much of myself into wielding that particular instrument with precision.  Now I can’t recall, only that somewhere along the way, I fell in love with words and the things they could do. 

When she died, I used my words to cut into my soul, let the pain bleed into words.  The scars eventually healed and faded.  It’s not very recognizable now.  I was stunned when you left.  You were supposed to come back.  Little girls who put their fathers on pedestals are disappointed when the first realize their hero is becoming tarnished with age.  Yet, we love you like when you were young and undefeatable.  You are our hero, our superman, our prince charming, the one who keeps our world spinning on its axis. 

When we grow up we learn that you were just the great wizard behind the curtain and all we ever had to do was will ourselves into our own happily ever after.  First we had to find the courage to walk down the yellow brick road that would lead to your citadel. 

I thought I could do this, talk about you.  It seems when I use my words, the cuts I make are deeper and the pain doesn’t pour, it gushes out.  I do not know how to do this, live in a world where you don’t laugh or where I can’t call your name, the one I called you my whole life.  My tongue has fallen silent.  My memory replays the last time I saw your face, laughing from the other side of the world.  I don’t understand how you could simply fall silent, close your eyes, and draw your last breath. 

I don’t understand the sound that filters through the phone, breaking through the fog of sleep after a week of troubled sleepless nights.  I don’t understand the tears I hear or the familiar voice, or the words that she utters.  The words don’t feel real.  How can you be dead?  Dead as a doornail; deader than Marley’s ghost.  They show me a body.  It’s a live video.  In this day and age of instant information, gigabytes that travel faster than the speed of light, how is that dead body lying there on the slab yours?

Why are you gone?  No one answers me.  I hate this.  I hate how much of my life revolved around you.  Should I have loved you less?  Knowing you’d one day leave me is far different now that you’re actually gone.  I close my eyes and I see you, sitting there the morning after I gave birth to your first grandson, while I tried to sleep.  His father had to take him to NICU.  My mother went home to get some rest.  I managed to get some sleep that morning only because every time I opened my eyes, you were sitting right there beside me in the dark. 

I see you again beside my hospital bed, holding your last grandson, the one who misses you every day, the one who prays for you every day even though you are dead.  He is the most like you I think. When he laughs it is pure joy.  They make the pain ease until the next time your memories start haunting me.  Maybe it’s better to hide behind this wall of silence because at least I can smile from back here and pretend I’m not broken beyond repair.

Life after death

I'm not sure how to talk about my father's death.  Maybe a man who's the father of a daughter will understand what it means to be daddy's little girl.  Do you ever stop being her even if you both age?  I'm not sure.  Sometimes I wonder what went through his mind in that moment when his heart finally called it quits.  Was he elated that his time had finally arrived and he would now be with the woman he loved with his entire heart and soul?  Or did he think of us, his children, or me?  I'm inclined to think he might have been elated and I can't hold that against him.  He was never quite the same after she died.  When he came back from burying her thousands of miles away in his childhood home, near the house he had built for her, something of him had been left behind, buried in the dirt along with her remains.  He was never exactly the father I knew.  He stopped being him the moment she died.  But I wonder if he even knew or understood that?  His faith sustained him but I don't think his heart was ever in it.

Now he's gone.  I move through his house, his office, his life trying to move forward.  My feet moves my body but my mind just wonders, lost among the remnants of his life.  I've had my heart broken before, but never by my father.  I'm pretty sure that this time its permanent.  I have my good days and my bad.  Today was a neutral day, neither good nor bad.  I spent the weekend playing with dirt.  His dirt.  The dirt in his garden.  I had my husband dig up those damn rose bushes I had wanted my father to remove but he never did.  Well they are now gone.  He put the one rosebush that I liked in a barrel planter which we stuck in the middle of what used to be my father's vegetable garden.  His neighbor commented on how he used to take advantage of the good weather to get an early start on his garden.  I hate the fact that his garden is ready and waiting for him but he's never coming back to work on it.  Or the fact that his seeds are waiting in the medicine cabinet in the downstairs bathroom, labeled by the year they were harvested, waiting for him to plant them.  I hate how this whole thing paralyzes me.

Death.  How odd that my children and I talk about it like anything else?  I can't melodramatically tell my son that I am dying of thirst because he points out to me that he hasn't had a drink all day and he's not dead.  My four year old plays with his Flash action figure and we finally notice because he declares in a loud voice to the entire room that the Flash is dying from cancer.  He prays for his "Dadu" but he's dead and then he prays for his Grammy Egg and Grand Ian because they are alive.  I had to tell my oldest son off today because he was hungry but refused to eat.  I told him I will not tolerate the eating habit he picked up from his grandmother because I will be damned if he's going to starve himself to death.  Maybe I was exaggerating a bit but he understood me only too well.  This is where we are.  I have no idea where we will go from here or how.

This is the last place I ever imagined being.