Time Loops Back
Lately, my mind has been traveling back a year. This time, last year, my dad’s health took a sharp decline. This time, last year, my brother and I started traveling to see him as often as we could. My niece, nephew and sister-in-law all reorganized their days to come and see him, thinking it was the end. Hospice came to help.
Anniversary grief hits as hard as the original. Maybe harder.
In the original grief, we’re consumed with what needs to be done. Making arrangements. Paying bills. Getting equipment. Travel. Figuring out how to work.
On an anniversary, there’s space for grief in a new way.
For a long time after my younger brother died, I hated Fridays. Every Friday afternoon, I would count down toward the time of his death, wishing for Harry Potter’s Time Turner. Eventually, that faded, and then I just hated the month of August. Now, it’s just the anniversary weekend of his death.
With my dad, we got more time with him than the hospice expected. A gift of months, when they told us weeks. We had visits when he was still himself. Then, visits when he was confused, and certain that we had moved him somewhere new. Then, visits when he slept a lot, and I worked from his room while he dozed.
Often, my dad’s condition was uncertain and my brother and I would stay longer than we planned. I had gracious work colleagues, and he’s a teacher, with the summer off. I got extra pants at the thrift store, and we both have things we bought on the fly from Meijer. Shirts. Coffee cup. Water bottle.
The anniversaries bring it all back. The piecemeal distress of someone slipping away, their essential qualities gone before the actual death. The movie we watched half of, before he got too tired. We said we’d finish it later and we never did. The complex mix of gratitude for more time, and stress about how to organize the rest of life. The guilt about not being there every day.
One of my biggest sorrows was when my dad couldn’t reach the phone anymore. There were no more conversations. One day, the nurse dialed for him, and it was an incredible gift to hear his voice in the middle of the day.
The mind is its own Time Turner, taking us back to grief, and also to thanksgiving. The assisted living staff who loved my dad when we weren’t there. “He’s such a nice man,” they would always tell us. The heroic effort the staff made to get him up and dressed at Thanksgiving, so we could have one last holiday with him. Grace, the woman who came to feed him when we weren’t there.
Anniversary grief also turns out to be anniversary gratitude.
-- Mary Austin
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