What is Grief? I Googled Dead Bodies When My Dad Died.
It’s the season of sappy, sweet holiday romances and all things red and green, which means Mariah Carey has emerged from her vault to perpetually a̶n̶n̶o̶y̶ grace us with All I want for Christmas is You for the next six weeks. It’s the anthem of modern-day Christmases. The literal manifestation of sugar and spice and everything nice, of falling in love under the stars, and crunching snow beneath your feet. But while the crooning reminds most millennials of Christmas talent shows and winter balls, it now reminds me of dead bodies.
That’s not nice — I know. Unfortunately, death isn’t nice, either.
It was during that blissful gap between Thanksgiving and Christmas that I last saw my father. I’d made the trek from Florida to the Pacific Northwest to spend a few weeks soaking up what can only be described as home: good coffee, crisp mornings, carne asada, and family and friends. It was an escape from the decidedly un-Christmas-like humid coastline, palm trees, and concrete jungle that is Jacksonville. I’m a northwest girl at heart. I’ll always choose the mountains over the sea.
I was standing in the bathroom at the end of the hall, straightening my hair. Dad was in his familiar spot in the den, nose to his desktop screen. I still remember the sound of him clicking-click-clicking away on his mouse.
“Hey Sis,” he’d called out. “How about this?”
And there it was — the bell chimes, the excessive vocal slides — the song that signals to millions worldwide that Christmas is approaching. I laughed. My incredibly conservative, by-the-book, churchgoing, God-fearing father was filling his house with Mariah Carey.
“So, you’re the one who gave me my Christmas music obsession!” I teased.
“Your Dad’s always liked Christmas music,” he hollered above the tune. Dad liked to refer to himself in third person.
Looking back over the 2017 holiday season, that morning is the one most etched into my memory. It would have been beautifully forgotten if it hadn’t been in the final chapter of Dad’s life. We would have listened to Mariah insist she didn’t care about the gifts underneath the tree and forgotten our laughter by lunch. The sighs and eyerolls from the rest of the family would have been lost on us, a collection of short-term moments worth little more than a snippet stored in the backs of our minds somewhere.
Maybe we would have had a memory trigger. Maybe we would have heard the song fill tinny mall speakers in later years, reminding us of that happy Saturday morning. Maybe we would have sung along again. Maybe, if my dad hadn’t died in front of a hospital elevator without receiving proper medical attention, I wouldn’t cry every time I hear Mariah Carey tell us what she wants for Christmas.
Dad died February 18, 2018. It took ages for me to be able to fully admit that. Like doing so somehow made it more real.
My leggings that day were pink and yellow and speckled black. I have a habit of wearing colorful activewear on my days off. Hopeful motivation. Maybe I’ll actually go to the gym if I’m already dressed for it.
That Sunday, I did not.
Instead, I spent the morning on the phone with Dad. He was in the hospital and tired of all the phone calls. He was really just so tired. He’d rung me early that morning and asked if I’d make a few calls to let people know where he was.
“Your dad’s just too tired for all the calls right now,” he’d said in his usual third person, fending off the piercing cough I’d become too accustomed to hearing. “Tell them I just need to rest right now — rest my voice. I’ll call when I’m home in a day or two.”
It was the best way I could help from 3,000 miles away. I missed the life I’d had in Maryland, but my then-husband had lost his job, and we’d found ourselves stuck down south. I should have just moved home. Now I was trapped three time zones away from Dad and powerless, hearing things like he’s “suffering from a lack of oxygen” and has “something like 40 pounds of fluid on his chest.”
I’d never heard Dad sound weak like that before, and I agonized over my decision not to fly back the second he’d called me Saturday morning to tell me he was in the hospital. Instead, I’d arranged to catch a flight on Wednesday.
“Don’t worry about it, Dad, “I’d told him. “Don’t even bother trying to argue. I’m coming out to see you. I’m going to stay awhile, and we’re going to get you well.”
It was the first — and last — time in my life I heard him accept help without a fight. “Okay, Sis.”
I didn’t get the chance to make good on that promise. At approximately 2:30 p.m. E.T., I got the worst call of my life. It was my stepmom, Tami’s, brother.
“Hi…ummm…this is Bryan. They, um, they were trying to…your dad, he collapsed. They’re…they’ve been trying to resuscitate him, and they can’t.”
I can still feel the way I strained my vocal cords, screaming, “WHAT? WHAT?”
I threw my phone against the wall and ran into the next room, interrupting my ex’s conference call. I screamed that Dad had collapsed and wasn’t waking up. Logic was elusive. I couldn’t think. I panicked and ran inside and called my sister. She didn’t answer. I called her husband. He picked up. I screamed at him to get Kelsey to Dad as fast as possible.
I called Tami’s phone back.
“Oh, no…he’s…he’s gone.” Bryan’s answer was shaky. There’s no elegant way to tell a daughter her dad is dead.
I didn’t understand. I couldn’t process it. Gone? Couldn’t he just hold on? Couldn’t he just…wait? Dad was only 52 years old. I’d just seen him at Christmas. Christmas. Mariah Carey. Laughing. Dad. Gone. Cold body. Dead bodies.
I fell to the stone floor, and I screamed. I screamed and punched that stone until my knuckles busted open and I could no longer make a fist. I screamed so hard I wet my pants. I screamed like my own soul had left its body. Eviscerated. Like that watercolor of a dying woman I’d voted into the student literary journal as sophomore in college.
While I lay on the floor varying between screaming and trying to talk to inconsolable relatives, my ex, in one of the kindest things he ever did in our roller coaster of a marriage, secured a last-minute flight to Seattle. Within two hours of receiving the news, we had dumped armfuls of freshly washed laundry from the couch directly into suitcases — unaware of what it was we’d even packed — made the 45-minute trek to the airport and gotten past the TSA.
I don’t remember walking through the checkpoint. I don’t remember where I sat on that flight or whether we were served peanuts or pretzels. I do remember the soft blue hue of the ambient lighting overhead. Blue was Dad’s favorite color. I also remember a man came pushing down the aisle at the end of the flight, stepping on people’s toes and hitting them with his carry-on as he self-righteously proclaimed there was somewhere important he needed to be so he had to skip the line of perspiring passengers waiting to disembark.
He stepped on my toe, and his bag knocked me back into my seat.
“Excuse me. I need to pass. I’ve got somewhere to be. I need to hurry or it’s gonna be a bad day.”
I raised up and looked at him. “My dad died today.”
“That’s bad,” he said, shocked. “That’s horrible, actually. I’m sorry.” He resumed his thrust toward the front, a measure humbler than he’d been 10 seconds earlier.
The rest of Dad’s “death story” is a normal one. We had a celebration service filled with music and stories from family, friends, and colleagues. Dad’s home church offered up a Thanksgiving-style potluck in honor of his favorite holiday meal. And then the stone was laid, etching into our memories and on our hearts that Dad belonged to the ages.
Life hasn’t gotten better, but it has gotten easier. Grief is a process with no ending. I cannot stress enough how important it is to learn not to “get over” death but rather how to weave loss into your everyday life. How to learn how to live again while still acknowledging and reverencing the life that was. Your life does not ever somehow get better without that person. On the contrary, it becomes easier for you to have good moments. Those moments turn to days, weeks, and sometimes months of joy.
There will be times when you smile and reflect on that ordinary Saturday morning when you playfully sang an overly commercialized Christmas song with your dad. There will be times when you cry and reflect on that ordinary Saturday morning when you playfully sang an overly commercialized Christmas song with your dad. It only took googling dead bodies a handful of times for me to realize that wasn’t the best way for me to express my grief long-term. Nonetheless, I don’t regret it. It felt good to teach myself that Dad’s body was just a shell. I needed the darkness to understand the light. I needed to know what Dad’s body was, so I could separate it from who he is. I already knew where he was. I believe.
It’s been 21 months since Dad died. I can say that now.
