February 1, 2022 | One Year Living & Learning Without Dad.

"I have found that in your absence somehow (shockingly; reassuringly) the world continues to turn."

And the ache returns. Thank God. The sweet and sudden ache that lets me know I am alive… How is it I’m still here? Each thing touched, each breath, each glint of light, each pain in my gut is cause for praise. I pray to keep falling in love with everyone I meet, with every child’s eye, with every fallen being getting up. Like a worm cut in two, the heart only grows another heart. When the cut in my mind heals, I grow another mind. Birds migrate and caribou circle the cold top of the world. Perhaps we migrate between love and suffering, making our wounded-joyous cries: alone, then together, alone, then together. Oh praise the soul’s migration. I fall. I get up. I run from you. I look for you. I am again in love with the world. [Excerpt from “In Love With the World by Mark Nepo]

MY BLOG PART IV

I came here to live a life and I am willing for my life to be this one. Whatever it is.

My Dad died one year ago today, February 1st, 2021 and I've spent the last year experiencing many firsts and practicing willingness. My bed faces due East and sometimes I leave the shades open at night so that I can catch the sunrise the minute I open my eyes in the morning. I went to bed last night, the eve of Dad's 1 year anniversary since his death, planning to have some quiet moments to myself before the city woke up. I didn't sleep soundly and awoke realizing I had missed the sunrise altogether, instead seeing a bright blue sky and pillowy white clouds gently passing through. It was 9 AM and the low roar of city trucks and people going on about their lives was in full effect. I could see planes up above making their final descent through Downtown Seattle and into Seatac airport, and could hear people down below on the city streets laughing or calling out to one another. And at that moment, this morning, I am reminded again that even on this anniversary of your death, life goes on. I had written about this feeling months before on Father's Day noting, "I have found that in your absence somehow (shockingly; reassuringly) the world continues to turn. Not only does the world continue to turn but it still enchants me. To my surprise I have discovered that beauty and love can still exist". And this is the biggest lesson of all that I have come to learn in the past twelve months. That I can loosen my white knuckled grip on life, that I can lie back. That, somehow in spite of it all, the sun will rise, and continue rising. And just like the words from my favorite Billie Holiday song, "I'll be seeing you, In all the old familiar places, That this heart of mine embraces, All day through, I'll find you in the morning sun, And when the night is new, I'll be looking at the moon, But I'll be seeing you".

I've spent the next year after you died having experiences and noting each milestone that passed for the first time without you. The first Father’s Day that I didn’t buy a card for you, the first Thanksgiving we didn’t cook and bake together, the first birthday you didn't serenade me over the phone, and the first Christmas we didn’t open gifts together. On what would have been your 80th birthday last month, I lit candles and set up a bouquet of flowers I would have given you, and now here today, February 1st, I commemorate your life and death. I went places with you in mind. I traveled and realized that love is actually, all around. I visited Mexico and Canada, France and Spain, the UK, the East Coast and other places in between. I saw you in all the vibrant life around me. I saw you in the hummingbird that visited my balcony on the beach. I saw you in a smile from an old man who reminded me of you. You were there in the dragonfly that flitted near me as I spread your ashes on the mountaintop. And it was you in the song that came over the speakers as I sat alone at a cafe in Paris, the song you always used to play for me. I remember that last moment distinctly. I had sat down to enjoy a glass of wine and people watch that day in Le Marais neighborhood. Sweet songs played over the French radio and just as I was starting to feel particularly lonely and blue, an English 70's Rock band started playing over the radio. I will never forget it. Here was a song you particularly liked "Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues", playing in, of all places, the middle of Paris, an especially ill suited soundtrack to the environment in which I sat. I listened to the words as I had many times before sitting next to you:

'[Song lyrics]"- "Nights in White Satin" Moody Blues (1968)

Just what you want to be

You will be in the end

And I love you

Yes I love you

Oh, how I love you

Oh, how I love you."

And in those moments, I hear, feel, and see many whispers and signs from you. I felt you, you being synonymous with love, in exchanges with other people along the way, too. Like the moment when the woman at my favorite tapas counter in Barcelona lovingly smiled at me from under her mask when she recognized that I was eating there every day and would say “Como estas, guapa?” as to say, welcome back. Or the server who tapped me on the shoulder because I had contorted myself into a small seat to eat my lunch and gestured to a table that was opening up behind me, or the man who saw me bow out of the way in a crowded place for a father carrying a baby and upon looking up, had done the same for me. Or the woman who I bumped into on a busy street who looked back at me with a big grin on her face and mouthed “Sorry!”. Or the warm embrace my Airbnb hostess turned friend Yael gave me on the last day as I left for another country, only having known her two weeks, or Remi, Solene, Zakaria, Elvis, Mailys, Alex, Stan, Antoine, and many others who along my journey this past year turned from strangers into friends and loved me as their own when in new countries. And to my chosen family who's friendship spills over me in abundance.I feel you in each of these people, in each of these experiences, Dad. And I thank you.

I am making do here. I will admit that life is harder and a bit less tender and colorful without you in it. I still find laughter, and peace, excitement and joy because I know it would pain you too much to ever have learned I might let those feelings fall by the wayside.

I always used to tell you that you should have been an astronaut or a doctor because of your penchant for the sciences. I'd tell you that you should have been a chef or a psychologist or a programer and you'd always stop, in your calm, clear eyed presence, and say, "Jamie, I'm right where I'm supposed to be."

So I leave this post for you, for me, for those who may read it, with that in mind. When I start to think to myself, "Dad you should be here", I know in my heart your response....

"Jamie, I'm right where I'm supposed to be."

Stay Close.

-Jamie