Today would have been my father’s 72nd birthday.  He died almost 20 years ago, but a lot of who I am and who I want to be come from my time living with him and my time learning how to live without him.

He was a kind, gentle, peaceful man.  He was always searching for God, trying to do his best for his wife and family, and working hard for us.  He worked as a large HVAC unit repair person my whole life.  When he wasn’t doing that, he loved to write and read.  He read about religions, was fascinated by the different Native American cultures and beliefs, and read about quantum physics and molecular science.  Dad didn’t finish high school; he dropped out and left home at approximately 15.  Much of his childhood story remains vague to my family, but we know something wasn’t quite right there.  But he was brilliant.

My earliest memories are of him writing in notebooks on the porch or in the basement.  He wrote through notebooks and notebooks with his thoughts –  on the books he wasreading, quotes he wanted to remember, and his own stories and poetry.  I have some of his writing but I got one particular notebook probably a year ago.  It wasn’t until recently that I opened the notebook again for the first time since I got it from my mom.   This notebook was entitled, “The Dark Book”, scribbled in the top right corner of the cover page.

There are a lot of poems in here.  It is where he drafted my uncle’s (his brother’s) obituary. It is where he wrote poems about me having cancer.  It is where he let himself be consumed by the tragedies of life.  It was hard to read through, knowing that the mourning pouring out of these writings were never really seen by our laid-back everyday dad.

I came to this poem,  and instead of my father, myself, my uncle or anyone else, I thought of the humans I work with.

This empty reality

Heavy embrace

pressing the wings

to the side

unable to unfold

remembering flight

and too

the perils that await

grounded spirits

Now, there is no sunshine to warm this poem up. This *is* from his “dark book”.  But hear me out – there is a lot of grief in being a person who lives different; someone who can’t do what other people can do; someone who can see and ache for goals and dreams that are just like other people their age.  There is a lot of grief in loss of who you were, who you expected to be, who you want to be.  That is thepopulation I work with.   But hold on…

This is a sad poem. It is also truth.  While there are many moments of happiness and hope and success and progress, there are moments to feel this pain.   My father felt this.  And it hurts to know he felt this pain.  But it also reminds me that I felt that pain too, when I lost him.  I see this poem as a gift and it makes me happy because nearly 20 years after my father’s death, he gives me reminders of being human, of remembering the whole picture, of loving all of the rose, even the thorns.  He gifted me his words at this time so that I could see that despite the grief,  we have heavenly creatures, grounded spirits, all around us here on earth.  The strength to smile and move forward piece by piece, the endurance of the people I work with and their strength of soul is one of the most celestial elements of what I get to see and do.

Even in dad’s heartbreaking words, I find peace.  He is no longer in pain, he is no longer suffering and looking for an answer.  I inherited his empathetic demeanor and for that I am constantly humbled and grateful.  Loss is pain.  It is also growth in the midst of adversity. For all of you out there struggling with grief, loss,  and pain – know that the coin can and does flip;  and this, too, is also temporary.

With love, grief, and gratitude…

Robin