here's to the lilacs.

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     The early flowers of spring bring me back something fierce to my childhood. My middle sister, Hillary, and I were born exactly a week (and almost 5 years) apart. Her birthday is April 28th and mine is May 5th. Then there is Mom's birthday on May 14th and my Dad's follows hers on May 17th. 

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     These weeks bring back strong memories of lilacs and joint sister birthday celebrations in the 90's on Broad Blvd. All the chairs pulled into the living room and Mom and Dad taking pictures of sisters smiling with their new huffy bikes. Homemade pinatas (seriously my mom was the Martha Stewart birthday queen) and birthday games in the yard. Running back and forth over the neighbor's cracked blacktop driveway. A couple weeks later Dad would make strawberry dessert cups for Mom and Mom would bake a chocolate on chocolate cake decorated with Hershey kisses for dad. There were always, always photos, blowing out the candles at the dining room cast iron table. Perfectly simple, wonderful celebrations with balloons taped to the corner cabinets and all. 

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Years later our littlest and last sister would join the family on March 17th, a little earlier in the season but capping our 2 full months of celebrations as a family. When Aaron and I married, it was March 18th, and when my Dad passed away, 2 years ago, he left on the 27th of April. One night before Hillary's birthday and 8 days before I turned 28. Squeezed in between all our springtime family celebrations; tulips in full bloom outside of his hospital room. Fitting I'd say. 

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     Now years later, things have certainly changed. I'm walking in the warm spring evenings in Colorado now with two little kids of my own and we always go down the alley with the lilac bushes. The smell takes me back, like a bizarre time machine of sorts, to these exact same weeks all those years ago... when our very own overgrown lilac bush was in full bloom in the backyard and mom would take clippings for our birthday table. 

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     So I sit here on my Dad's birthday eve; sifting through the ups and downs of the last two months. One day wishing Hillary a happy 25th birthday and the next morning waking up to remember the day that my dad passed away. This year was my 10th wedding anniversary and I turned 30!  Big things amidst years of uncertainty and trying to figure life out. Dad has been gone for two years now and it's a strange, hard point of grief for me. I live so far from family now, but there have been many calls and cards back and forth these last 2 months. Of course the cards for my sisters and mom are still on my counter because everyone knows I'm scattered as hell and presents from me are habitually late.

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     I'm missing my dad something fierce tonight. I'm thinking and knowing it's unfair that he's gone. I'm wishing I had things more "figured out" in life. Feeling frantic and like I've failed these mega-milestones that I hit this year. Marriage and relationships are totally beyond my expertise and turning 30 hardly has me at a point of great success and wise understanding. Dad's gone and honestly, I don't have it anymore figured out or emotionally processed than on the day he died. 

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     What I am learning is that nothing in life is ever really that perfect or very much figured out at all. Learning and believing this; being able to peel away false perception and tearing down walls of a perfect exterior, these are the things I've grasped and processed at the end of my 20's. If there is anything I've "figured out" so far it's to never, ever EVER think, not for a moment, that you've figured it all out. Not ever, because I promise you that you haven't. Definitely not at 18 or 24. Especially not at 30...

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     All those years ago, we didn't have it all figured out as a family either and things were certainly far from perfect behind the scenes. But you know, my parents tried the damn best that they could. And here we all are, still making it, still trying, still finding our paths, separately and together. Still confused but still calling each other on our birthdays. Still saying I love you. 

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     We're still celebrating these special days together. Of course now we have great sorrow and loss in the mix but it's also beautiful in its own very real way. It's what we have; it's our reality and it's ours to share and have together. 

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We know that no matter what happens, there will be always be birthday flowers blooming in spring and with them, the sweet, strong undeniable smell of memories and love. 

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Here's to never, ever giving up on that love. 

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Here's to the lilacs...

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*Happy Birthday Daddy*

   Forever, 

  Gigi
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chasing the moon.

( dad + me )

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     Last Monday, April 20th, I was driving home from work and saw the most amazing crescent moon. April 20th was Easter last year and even though I have the flightiest memory imaginable, I remember that the 20th was Easter and I remember vividly the events that occurred in my father's last week of life because time seemed to stop and tick by slowly and deliberately. As I drove home last Monday, I decided to drive up the mountain road behind my house to the little spot where I scattered flowers on my dad's birthday last year, to think of him under the light of the biggest most beautiful moon. 

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     The raw emotion of trying to find a spot closer to him flooded over me and as I drove higher up the road, I watched the moon start to sink below the mountain peaks. Staring at that last little sliver peeking out as I drove over the dam, I felt panicky wanting the moon to hang on. It's the same panic I felt last year, hearing the words of many telling me that my dad was passing away but wanting him to hang on, filtering through the events that happened but desperately wanting it to not be true. As the moon sunk low, I felt gypped. I wanted my moment; to climb in the night and feel the stillness of the huge Colorado sky, to feel comforted by that quintessential crescent moon hanging over the mountains and to feel my father in the stillness I'd find there. As I got to our spot, the moon finally slipped away and the light that brought me there was gone. When I pulled into the little parking lot at the spot I was looking for, I realized that 4/20 to me is different than to the community up there who were dancing around with light sabers, smoking weed to celebrate and adding the perfect punctuation to my disappointment. 

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     It was then I realized that I was silly to try and chase the moon. I'm grown up now and I should know that I can't always catch the things I want. I know tragedy and big pain and have struggled with the best of them. I can't catch the moon and I can't hold onto it's light. I can't have my dad back on Earth with me. As hard as I freaking try to wish these things into reality for myself, they will not come true. 

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     Driving down the mountain that night, crying and sorting through ideas too big to ever truly understand, I felt a weird sense of truth washing over me. It's the sort of thing that only happens after losing someone close to you; you figure things out on a deeper level than you ever have before. I do know that I'll find the moon again, that every night it will be back, standing strong in the sky. I also know that when I take a step back from the giant pain of losing my father, when I climb down that mountain a couple of steps, he's there shining in my life as well. In everything I feel my father; I feel him close, I hear his laugh, I feel his approval wash over me when something goes right in my life. It almost seems that a person is more alive after they die. Before, my dad was a person; he existed in constant phone calls and texts, Thursday night dinners at Namaw's house and Christmas Eve sleepovers. He still exists, but now he is scattered everywhere. In the wind I feel his memory, in the future I feel his presence and I see him right there in front of me when I look into my babies' eyes. He's with me somehow everyday and every night he's shining with the light of the moon. 

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     I can't catch him or pin him down but if I sit back and close my eyes, I can feel his warm glow, and I always, always will.

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loss.

( on our way to Chicago, 2010 )

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As some of you know, I lost my dad last spring. It's almost been 6 months ago. Half of a year feels almost substantial but to be honest it all still feels so raw and new; I still feel pretty separated from it. I know that there are steps to grief but for me it's been less about following logical steps and more about feelings that are just all over the place all of the time. And even though I've gone through periods or moments of healing, growing, anger, acceptance, learning or changing... to be honest I'm still mostly in shock and denial about it all at this point.
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The end happened very quickly and it was a whirlwind that didn't seem real to me at all. I mean it happened really, really tragically fast. I traveled home to be with him but I didn't make it. I made decisions from afar, I watched things spiral out of our control. Thinking about that last week just still blows my mind. The timeline of it all is completely mind blowing to me and I can't wrap my head around it. I spoke to my dad on the phone 2 nights before he died and I can still hear him saying, "I'm doing a little better."
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I don't feel like I have anything intelligent or introspective to say about losing my dad at this point. It's more like this big suitcase in my life has been shut and inside it are all of these swirling papers and lists and things upon things that I need to sort through and figure out. Instead of dealing with it I just sort of stuff it closed and cram it under my bed. Sometimes I get it out and do things like pick out a gravestone from photos that my sister sends me on Facebook. Sometimes I wear his bracelet and think about how I could donate my time someday to a cause in his honor. Always I hear his voice, see his face, feel his memories. But there is still a lot of stuff in that suitcase my friends, and I don't honestly know when I'll really be able to sit down and open it up.
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My boys talk about my dad, "Poppy" a lot. Roman says things in that 6 year old way that are just absolutely the most beautiful things in the world. He remembers things about my dad that would make his Poppy full of happiness and pride. He remembers that, "Poppy always had things ready for us when we came for Christmas." He remembers the Easter decorations that were nicely set out when we went to his apartment after his death. It sounds silly but those details are so my dad; he cared about making things special. Asher looks in the sky and says "I miss Poppy. He's in the sky? I can't seeeee him. He has wings? He can fly?" I don't know that they will remember him at all. I always tell Roman to keep remembering, to keep remembering. I'm worried that he won't and it makes me cry big tears. It isn't fair. My dad was so good to my boys, I wish they could have and know him longer.
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My constant dreams about my dad have settled down a bit. But I did have one the other night. In it I was telling my dad that he would always be alive to my sisters and I and that he didn't need to feel sad or fearful about leaving us because we would always, always be with him. I was literally chuckling a little, like, what's the big deal, nothing can separate us.
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So yeah, I don't know, I really don't know anything at all. It does suck, all of it. It all just sucks. My sisters and I each have our theoretic suitcases full of things to sort through now as well as real life boxes upon boxes of things that we've inherited from our father as well. There will certainly be many years of sorting and sharing and pouring through them all in our future. There will be tears of joy and of course many tears of sadness. Hopefully we will continue to be able to share and grow together through the happiness and sorrow of it all. Hopefully it will connect us more and more through the years. We share this journey.
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The grief process is rocky and the future of it all is uncertain to me. One thing that I do feel certain of is that feeling of truth from my dream; my dad will always, always be alive to my sisters and I. Inside I truly feel like no girls have ever loved their father more.  One concrete feeling I've derived from this all is learning and seeing true, uninhibited love. It's the love I felt, the night my dad died, as we sat  inside my mom's living room laughing and crying together. It's the love I felt when my grandpa said, "whatever you girls want," when we planned one last big celebration for our father.  It's the love that we all poured into my dad in our own separate ways, in the ways that we were capable of, at the end. It's hard to explain but I guess there certainly is something beautiful about the heartache and desperate pain. Even though it's a terrible loss, there are moments - like when I look at the mountains and think about how much my dad would have loved them, it's moments like that make me feel something so very truthful and absolutely real. It makes me feel connected to my dad in a way that is almost closer than if he were right there in front of me... in those ways my dad lives on.
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<3
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"Loss" is the October writing prompt of The Mommy Blogger Collective.

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The Mommy Blogger Collective /// Christina, Courteney, Dena, Erica, Erin, Gillian, Katie, Misty, Nicole, and Renée. ///