The fear of letting go

Written by Jane & Lauren

We are in the process of putting a bench & lilacs on this spot where Chuck stopped so many times, in contemplation. Maybe now we know better what he was thinking about?

As I’ve written my blog and gotten great feedback I’ve wondered what purpose it plays. It certainly has helped me process my grief. I sense it has helped others who are managing grief as well. But I have also thought about whether there are some other messages that are important. Last week, Lauren, Elizabeth and I all acknowledged on the same day a similar fear: when the grief starts to wane, will Chuck’s presence in our life also be diminished? I wrote about it in my posting “June.” After some long conversations with both Lauren and Elizabeth, Lauren shared this essay with me which is beautiful and achingly painful.

“Since my father’s death I have worn a “C” necklace every day. Every night I take it off to sleep, and every morning I put it on before I leave the house. I’ve thought recently about what significant symbols or sayings I have shared with Dad. Every night for as long as I lived at home, my dad would come to “tuck me in.” He didn’t literally tuck me in as I can’t stand my feet being trapped under the blankets, but rather he would come in to say goodnight, maybe give me a hug or a kiss on the forehead—the only person I would allow this type of physical contact with by the way—and one of us would sign off with our nighttime ritual of “sleep tight.” And then the other person would respond, “don’t let the bed bugs bite.” Even during college if I made my daily phone call in the evening, we would sign off this way. To be honest, bed bugs are gross and I’m sure it does not conjure a pleasant mental image to outsiders. However, over time this statement transcended more than just its literal interpretation, and became something I knew I could count on to stay consistent. I crave routine and consistency, and on the days or weeks when I was stressed about a lack of control, I knew that every night my Dad would knock, poke his head into my room and say “sleep tight,” with a smile or a wink. Maybe followed by a, “don’t stay up too late reading.” It did not matter which house we had just moved into, or if the next day was normal or monumentous, if someone had just died or been born. And then into college, it didn’t matter if I had nothing going on and had talked to him a few hours ago, or if he knew I was out with friends and wouldn’t be going to bed anytime soon. I would always receive a text saying “goodnight, sleep tight” with some sort of heart emoji.

Now that he is gone, I do not have that one comfort every day that I knew I could count on. There is no more consistency, and often I feel as though I am in freefall, floating from one task to the next, doing them to the best of my ability but not really present. It feels as though a chunk of my heart has been removed, and I am constantly searching for ways to replace it with pieces of him. Hence, wearing the necklace every day, even if it only gives me a faux sense of his strength guiding me. I wear his ratty old jacket around when it’s cold in favor of my much nicer, more expensive one. I keep the birthday cards he has written me in a ziploc bag on my nightstand until I find a more permanent place for them, or at least until I can bring myself to put them “away” and not keep them by my side. I have thought of many tattoo designs I could get to commemorate him, or of pieces of decor for my new apartment that remind me of him, but haven’t committed to any of them. Deep down I know this is because no matter how many pieces of Dad I try to carry around with me, none of it will fill this gaping hole I feel in my chest. With this realization, the question then becomes: well then what the heck do I do? If the hole cannot be filled, will it always feel this way, like I am grasping desperately for any piece of him I can hold onto for the rest of my life? The alternate, more rational possibility is that over time this desperation and horrible feeling of pure grief will begin to subside. But then I run into another problem. Do I want it to? Who am I without my Dad? Once I find it within myself to fully let go of this horrible feeling in my chest, it feels as though I will finally, permanently lose that last piece of him. And that way of living—completely without him—is even more terrifying than the manageable but constant state of grief I am experiencing now.” LAH

The best response I could offer to Lauren and Elizabeth regarding their fear of letting go of their grief and thus losing Chuck completely, was that Dad/Chuck himself gave us a great example. Chuck had a lot of grief and sadness in his life. He lost a son. He had failed marriages which were portrayed in horrendously unfair ways in the media. And more. Yet, as you read above and between the lines in my writing, or as some of you had the pleasure to experience, while he was quiet and private he wasn’t bitter. He found the courage and strength to love despite all the loss and trauma. To open himself to happiness again. And, one of his greatest final gifts was to tell the girls and me in direct and confident tones that he wanted us to do the same: move on and find happiness. 

Of course knowing this and figuring out how to do it and then having the courage are a multi-step process. One of my daily readings and reflections on recovering from grief provided a hint, I think. Another poem! This one by Walt Whitman: “How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,/Till ring and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,/In the mystical moist night air, and from time to time,/Look’d up in the perfect silence at the stars.” Then the author profers this: “... how reassuring it can be to go out into the quiet night and look up at the stars. Surely in a world of such vast beauty and order, such unfathomable reaches of time and space, there must be meanings beyond our understanding.”

As the girls know, Chuck loved the night sky. Sleepovers at our house were often accompanied by instruction in finding the Big & Little Dipper (which all three of my girls can do easily). There was the night where multiple shooting stars were going to be in the night sky and Chuck pulled all the mattresses out on the lawn and slept out there with the girls to watch. I knew how special this made him as a Dad. I also knew that he thought and felt things deeply that he didn’t always share. And now I wonder if part of his attachment to the night sky and the beauty of nature and its vastness wasn’t, as Whitman captured, partly a reassurance and comfort. That in a complicated and sometimes cruel world, we need only look to nature for reassurance that we will someday understand. But for now, our job is simply to appreciate. And to love.