Part 2: The Nucleus ft. Jennifer Szambecki

A response to/continuation of my last post. I like this one exponentially more, possibly just because my sister is a part of it, and she makes everything better.

Jenni/Older Sister/Bug

It’s Thursday morning. I’m standing in the closet putting my watch on. As is often the case, I have two or three concurrent lines of thinking happening at once. One of them is thinking about an important meeting on Monday. Because my brain came out of the box in the shape of a calendar, I know Monday is the 14^th. The 14^th. The six-month anniversary of my Dad’s death.

I wish I could go to his graveside.

What? I don’t go to gravesides. That’s not a thing for me. And I certainly supported his decision to be cremated. It’s what I want for myself. But that does mean no graveside, no place to visit.

I’m painting in my eyebrows, passively listening to Morning Edition. It’s that I want to feel connected to him. And my first instinct is “graveside visit.” I blame movies and TV.

Okay, so what else can I do to achieve that connection I’m desiring. I could go to his house. I could look through photos. I could—

Oh.

Ohhh.

I cannot feel the connection I long for. There is no way. It is not available to me. It is impossible. It is gone forever.

And this, I realize, is the essence of grief. I found the nucleus. Or at least the deepest layer so far.

There is nothing I can do, no place I can go, no ritual I can perform that will satisfy this longing.

If this is acceptance, I’d like to send it back please.

People say I can talk to him. I don’t believe it. I don’t believe that connection exists as part of the human condition. (Or, I suppose in this case, the human-to-ghost condition?) If heaven exists and it’s eternal oneness with our Creator, I’m just guessing that everyone there is too preoccupied with singing God’s praises to hang out with us stinky mortals. Maybe I’m projecting.

It's Thursday afternoon. I’m washing my hands in the office bathroom. I’ve been in a meeting all day. Facilitating the meeting, to be exact. While also fielding emails and texts from others at work requiring my time-sensitive attention. While trying to look like all I’m doing is facilitating the meeting. I haven’t had time to think about my Dad. Except for the moment when one of my colleagues said, “Fucking A let’s do it” and in that moment, I felt a wisp of a connection to Dad. Like the “flavor” of La Croix.

I’m no longer distracted by the work things so my mind turns to my morning revelation about grief. My grief. I wonder if Kate will let me guest write about it in her blog. I wonder when she’s going to write again. It’s been a few weeks. She’s been busy and I don’t judge her for the lengthening durations between posts. But man do I love to read her writing. Anyway, because the Spirit moves, I look down at my phone not 20 minutes later to see she’s published a post. I don’t open it right away. I always need to be home and alone to read her posts.

I text her on my way home, tell her about the evidence of the Spirit moving between us, including the part about how I’d just had the thought, “Maybe Kate will let me guest write” when her post came through. She is, of course, game. I point out that even though I haven’t read today's post yet, if history is a guide, she’s already written about how I’m feeling.

And how am I feeling? Since I realized I’ll never again feel the life-giving connection I had with the man who was my safest of safe places, my vital source of unconditional love, my Steely Dan dance partner? I can’t ever seem to find the words. I’m grateful to know someone who can.

It’s Thursday evening. I’m reading the post. I was correct. In the same way she has every. single. time. Kate has written my grief.

Is this the sorry, broken, this-side-of-heaven version of the connection I get now that my Dad is dead? Me and my sister, separated in age by nearly 21 years, connected perfectly in spirit by our earthly father…and maybe our heavenly One? Living parallel stages of grief down to the day? Carrying this yoke with despair and anguish and gratitude stapling us together?

I’ll take it.

Kate/Younger Sister/Little Bug

It’s Thursday night/Friday morning/too many hours past my sister’s bedtime. I check my email on my way back to my hotel room (because I am Jennifer Szambecki’s sister) and I see an email from her; a precious gift (it is actually four consecutive emails). I read them outside the door of my hotel room. I lean my head against the wall and weep. Finally.

It's funny to me that she says she can't find the words (and that I can), because this time, she wrote what I couldn’t put words to. I needed her words. My description had only begun to scratch the surface of the longing and the absoluteness of what is now impossible; the deepest layer, the nucleus. I love that word.

Our dad is gone, and that is the seemingly obvious thing that we know but cannot make our bodies believe. We understand this in our minds. Does that mean we accept it? I find myself averse to that word. Acceptance feels like defeat, like giving up on connection. I know that that connection is no longer possible, but I still can't let go of the longing.

The nucleus: We are unwilling to give up the longing for that which we cannot have. And if we can't assuage it, and won't give it up, where does that leave us?

It shouldn't be a surprise, my sister and I having the same revelation on the same day, since we still share mannerisms and exclamatory phrases despite living 1,000 miles apart (though this also never ceases to amaze us both). My dad did say to me that there’s something to be said for DNA. Maybe this is what he meant. Even though the connection we are both craving is not the one to each other, my connection to my sister is one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given, and I feel that now more than ever. Perhaps it’s the closest we can come to what is no longer possible.

I'll take it too.

Author’s note: If you recall me saying that last month was the six-month anniversary of my dad’s death, no you don’t.