one year on....

 A year ago today my dad passed away after being sick for quite some time. I had spent the previous year at home with my parents and it had been a tough but also beautiful year. Somehow and for some reason God gave us a life that is most of the time bittersweet, beauty mixed with tears is the most realistic view I can offer at this moment. I don't usually speak of my feelings publicly and it has taken me a full year to acknowledge out loud that he is really gone. But we all go through this, death touches us all at some point in life, it is inevitable, a part of life, yet, somehow, nothing prepares you for it. The depth of sorrow that engulfs you is beyond all description that I could ever possibly give. In the midst of this is the realization of how blessed I was and am. Blessed to have the dad that I had, his constant presence and support accompany me to this day, even if now in a different way. The things he taught me have carried me through challenges and adventures and I was able to face them because he was there. I am who I am because he made it possible. And he would want me to live, and smile, and enjoy life and that keeps me going.

In this rare moment of emotional outpour, it surprises me that I want to and am able to write so publicly. Perhaps it is a tribute to him, perhaps it will help someone out there who is also mourning, if it helps you then I am glad I have found the courage to say out loud what I have kept buried all this time. Perhaps it is helping me, for what I have learnt over this past year is that you don't get over a loss you learn to live with it. You can't get over it because the love you felt you continue to feel even when the person is gone, it is a love that simply does not appear to have anywhere to go now and yet it becomes transformed and transforms you. The world acquires a different colour with that transformed love and it finds a new place allowing you to love those that remain in the here and now much better than you had before. And this brings hope that the darkness that can engulf you will not last forever, God is there to carry you through. Death does not have the final word.


Psalm 130 

Out of the depths I cry to you o Lord.

Lord, hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive 

to the voice of my supplications!


O Israel, hope in the Lord!

For with the Lord there is steadfast love,

and with him is great power to redeem. 

It is he who will redeem Israel

from all its iniquities.



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