Moving Forward

It's been a week now, since Daddy's funeral. A weird, wounded, warm week with all the things that were dropped the week before crammed into days that were already full of stuff. Friends and coworkers have been enormously kind and helpful, reaching out to me, touching me with notes or phone calls, allowing me to do my grieving in my own way - which is to talk about it. Talk and talk and talk and talk and talk - mostly abut Daddy, a little about TheFamily, even some about the greater ring of beyond. One darling friend laughed at me, saying 'I can't believe how all over the place you are when you talk about your father' and boy was she ever right. Because with Daddy there was no one emotion - no one relationship - it was always all over the place. It felt good to have that friend recognize it, point it out to me, and laugh about it. It helped me laugh too.

I had no idea how often during the day I'd store up little things to share with him the next time I visited. I did it all week long, from buying a new dress - he was nothing if not sartorially splendid - to a photograph of my guys cutting down the big pine tree. I'm thrilled by how much of the darker stuff has just melted away. In fact, it struck me last week that it's that way for most of us - we can forget about the dark stuff when the person who wielded it is gone and can no longer use it around us any more. Then, if there were other, brighter things about that person - they remain. I've seen it happen when friends have lost really important loved ones. I am no different.

It was ghastly hot too. So hot you couldn't sleep at night. And then blessedly cool - after a powerful storm rolled in. The weekend has been a sweet chunk carved out of a Virginia summer. I did almost nothing at all. Took a long walk. Ran a vacuum over the floors, ran a couple of loads of laundry through the machine. Flipped through a bunch of lightweight magazines with shiny photos and no text. (Love me some People Magazine) I even picked up some yarn and knitting needles and a little graph paper printed off my computer's spreadsheet program. I am thinking a green lace scarf knit in some Spirit Trail Fiberworks club yarn.

And so. It was the week where you thought "A week ago Daddy was alive" and then "a week ago sisters were here" and then "a week ago ...." I'm glad that week is over. I'll layer new memories on top of last week's and then new ones on top of them and the arc of time that is my life will curve on into the future, feeling like it's straight but really, just a segment of the great round universe. I think I will start today.