Death, Again

Death is a quietly determined visitor. Both of my parents have died within the past 16 months. Each time, the suffering lingered longer than it should have.

Life’s tenacity, in the end, is its greatest vanity.

My father died yesterday. Anyone who knew him wouldn’t be surprised at how long he struggled to stay alive when his body no longer agreed with his will. After all, it was next to impossible to pull him away from a party. What most people don’t know is how it was also next to impossible to make him show up for a party.

He was a man of extremes. He was troubled with profound depression and multiple addictions. They say he was difficult to live with, which I rarely did. The time I spent with him became “incidents” I had to reveal in therapy years later.

When your memories are “incidents”, processing death is a little different than the usual grief. It has nothing to do with anger or forgiveness. It has nothing to do with impressions other people had of him, as incomplete as they were. These are just facts of how it was. They were events on a timeline, and justification of the bad by burying it under the good still leaves the equation unsolvable.

There will not be closure. There was never going to be closure. I can accept that. But there will be peace.

Yesterday, when the news of his death was new, I remembered several times the burial scene of “Out of Africa”.

“He was not ours. He was not mine.” I get that.