Of Blessed Memory

On Connecting

Dear friends,

We’re still in holiday mode here. The Christmas tree will be up until after we celebrate Eritrean Christmas on January 7^th, and I will be in no hurry to take down the lights even after that.

This was the first Christmas season since my dad died last May. I thought of him a lot during the holidays, and about so many small moments with him throughout my life. This is not so much a story of the holidays, but a story of finding my way through grief, a journey we will all take throughout life.

His death in May followed a short, but harrowing time of hospice. (I wrote about that here). After his death, I felt haunted by the memories of those last weeks. I had trouble shaking the disturbing images from that time and I had to consciously work to replace them with images of him in life. Honestly, I had trouble accessing his presence for quite a while which I didn’t expect to be so difficult. We were close in life, so I figured we would be close in death. I wanted to feel that he was still near, and I felt anxious that I couldn’t.

The first time I felt him close was about a month after he passed. We had gone walking near the river, not far from where I grew up. I know he had walked these same paths, but I didn’t sense him there.  As we returned, I was getting tired and wanted to find a bench to sit on to rest.  The benches we had passed on our way out were now occupied but eventually we found one.  I sat down and looked at the memorial plaque on the bench. It was dedicated to my dad’s friend whom he had known since high school and who had been a neighbor when I was growing up. “Well played, Dad,” I said out loud.

Little by little, I created a collage of memories that brought him closer. I took mental snapshots of moments and recounted stories to myself. He was a storyteller, so I sifted through stories he had told over the years. It helps me to remember specific moments, specific stories.

As the holidays approached, I knew I would miss him. What I didn’t know is that the repetition of the yearly rituals would again tap the comfort of memory.

I love Christmas music, especially traditional carols and spirituals. They evoke good memories of holidays past and celebrate returning light and hope. When I was 3, my dad and I sang In the Bleak Midwinter together and he recorded it on an old school tape recorder with the big reels of tape. I listened to it several times when I was growing up, but the reels and the recorder disappeared into the ethers long ago. How I would love to hear us sing together again – what I have I give him, give him my heart. I do still hear it in memory. I love that song, forever steeped in my young experience of it, and think of this sweet moment when I hear it every year.

Year to year, I forget what is in the ornament and decoration boxes. As I unpack the boxes, I meet them again like old friends who remind me of their origins and the stories that make them meaningful.

I unpack two drummer boy music boxes, and my dad is near.

When I was about 10, I was fascinated with music boxes. Someone gave me a Little Drummer Boy music box for Christmas. It was a ceramic figure, Hummel-style, knock-off, probably inexpensive. I loved it and kept it on my dresser year-round. One day, my dad was vacuuming, and he knocked the drummer boy off my dresser and it shattered. I was crushed and angry. I’m sure he was crushed too. He cleaned up all the pieces of that drummer boy, and lovingly glued them back together like Japanese kintsugi, but with glue rather than gold marking the seams. He got a special wooden drummer boy music box for me as a replacement. Fifty years later, I have them both and bring them out every Christmas. The wooden music box is beautiful and will probably last for generations, but the humble chipped, cracked, and repaired drummer boy has my heart. It’s full of the love and kindness of my dad repairing something that was precious to me.

One memory unlocks another, and I add to the chain of images that comfort me and bring my dad close. They serve as handholds as I make my way through his absence and learn what it means that he is both here and not here. As I practice making these connections, I make space for his presence. 

I’m learning the dance of holding on and letting go on this side of the threshold. I imagine we will all learn the same again one day on the other side.

How do you make connections with your beloved dead? I hope they are near when you need them.

Please share this with folks who might be interested. As always, thank you for being here.

Wishing you many moments of joy, love and beauty in this new year!

Lots of love,

Maija

Songs of the Week: In the Bleak Midwinter here by Sarah McLachlan and a particularly beautiful rendition of The Parting Glass by boygenius and Ye Vagabonds.