birth after birth and death

After posting some of the letters and thoughts of my dad I felt I would wrap it up with one final post regarding CEH.

I was witness to my dying father (which in much literature is equated with God). It was with much humility I scrutinized his passing. I kept going back to The Father by Sharon Olds which I had read more then a decade earlier. Her chronicling of her father's illness and death was unflinching. "Every hour now he is changing, /Shedding some old ability...I would be there all day, watch him nap,/ be there when he woke, sit with him...darkness upon the face of it, as if / waiting for his daughter."

I have given effort to make my dad's death a birth for me (it definitely was for Everett). My dad was absent and silent much of my existence. I am sure I felt inaccessible to him as well. Yet, the love we felt for each other was born of flaws. Those flaws we shared linked us to each other. I feel as if I honored him by paying attention to him first as he was sick and 8 months later as he was dying. I saw how much his hands were like mine. I noticed the thinking process and life determinations were similar. I became intent on getting to know him. Now I struggle with memory and things being past, for that thief time takes away so much.

You no longer being here has forced me find you accessible in other arenas. Dare I say faith? Dad, your death has been instructive. Your life has been impactful. The living keep on living for that is all I can do. Your body lives on in mine (and your sons). I await each day for a new birth. I honor all you were and think of you often. I laugh at one of the last times we went out and you had a huge hole in the ass of your jeans. I debated telling you. You became so animated about how you would not know what to do without me in your life over a hole in your pants. I don't know what I am doing without you. But I keep on get going and doing as an action of love, all the while knowing it would clearly be more life if you were still here.