How lucky we were to have had any of it, much less all of it

From D.W.: Rachel and I would often joke about which one of us would die first. We both insisted it had to be us, not the other one, because the pain of loss would be too great. “If you die before me, so help me god!” “If I catch you dying, I will die so much faster!” Turns out she got the last laugh. I didn’t even see it coming. Good one, babydoll.

Death was never a taboo topic between us. We’d both lost several close friends and family members before and during our relationship. The most significant for each of us was our fathers. Each of our fathers passed away before Rachel and I met. Mine when I was 30 and hers when she was 18. It’s never easy to lose a parent, of course, but having to go through that trauma when you’re 18 feels like a devastatingly cruel test, especially given how close Rachel and her dad were.

We both regretted that we never got to introduce each other to our fathers. My dad would have been absolutely over the moon for Rachel. She would have made him feel important and laughed at his jokes. Two things that would guarantee you a spot in my dad’s affections forever. I hope that Rachel’s dad would have liked me. She always said he would. And, if everything I’ve heard about him is true, I’m sure I would have liked him. People say that Rachel was a lot like her dad, so there’s that.

One of the more pernicious effects of grief is the persistent invasive questions that you can’t stop pondering. One of those for me is whether it would have actually been better for me to die first. Of course, I’d give up anything to have prevented her death, but knowing now how painful that loss is, I can’t imagine putting her through it. The whole thought exercise is unhelpful and unhealthy, and completely unnecessary, but that’s what makes them so invasive.

On the day I turned 42 Rachel told me that she was looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep again. “What do you mean?” I asked. Turns out that for the entire previous year she’d been unable to sleep well because she was afraid I would stop breathing in my sleep. That was during my 41st year. The same age her father was when he died. These things never leave you.

If I have my dates correct (I was never good at that. Rachel more than made up for it), William Lamar Graves died 29 years ago tomorrow. I so, so wish I could have met him, but I’ll forever be grateful for the life he lived and the gift he gave to me. This one’s for you, Doc.

Facebook. May 18. 2021

I thought about this guy all day today. Hard to believe it’s been 24 years. I’m older than he was, which seems nuts. Love you, Daddy. Always.

Facebook. November 9. 2011.

Rachel Jones is listening to George Will talk about baseball in the Ken Burns baseball documentary. In my head, I'm laying on the hardwood floor of our old house on College Street, with my teenage feet propped on the glass blocks, at the foot of my father's brown upholstered recliner, smelling vanilla pipe smoke and Stetson cologne, hearing the maniacal whisper of his red pen on test papers. And all is right with the world.

Facebook. May 18. 2022

Peonies for my Pops. 25 years is a long time, and also just the blink of an eye. I miss him every single day. And I am so grateful to have had him for as long as we did. I still run across things I wish I could show him or share with him, so sometimes I put them here. Here are the flowers that bloom every year around this day, cut fresh from my yard. And here’s a song from a movie I know we would have talked to death between us. My heart is so full. I love being his daughter, and to me he was the best dad in the whole world. Thanks for hearing it, my darlings.
Love—rachie

Long Valley Lane. June 21. 2010

yeah, so...
writing about my dad feels like a lot of different things, some of them are good, some of them are bad, and some of them are really hard. one thing i don't want, from anyone, any time i write about him, is sympathy. i hate that. never feel sorry for us, for me, for him, for the family. everyone gets dealt a rough hand in life, at some juncture, and no one gets to choose what their rough hand is. you just play your cards with grace and dignity. but no pity, please.

i missed him yesterday. i missed him all day long. i can hear him so clearly, on most days. sometimes, i can smell him. sometimes, he is so close, i feel like if i turned around fast enough, i could catch a glimpse of him. there is a part of me, a little girl part of me, that is sure he lives in the moon, and can hear me when i talk out loud to him. i know that's bizarre and ritualistic, and i should know better, blah blah blah, but i do it anyway. he wasn't a perfect father. but he was mine. i have this list of questions i would just love to have answers to, but, as with so many questions i have for my father, for G-d, for the universe, those are not for this life.

i am proud to be his child, every single day. i hope i make him proud. i could care less about the big questions, anymore. i really just crave the comfort, the little piddly things like "goodnight" and "good morning" and " call us when you get there". it's silly, and it's so self-indulgent to weep over them. but it happens, nonetheless.

mil besos,
rmg

Facebook. June 16. 2020

When I miss the smell of pipe smoke and the Victorian wallpaper on the ceiling in his office, when I wonder what we would make of each other and the world right now, when I feel sore and confused, when I need to feel the rumble of his voice telling me that this is what it means to roll with the punches, to remind me of who I am and how I am and that he called me Queenie for a reason that has nothing to do with being precious or cosseted...
...that’s when I remember how close he still is. And then I listen to Elton John and thank God my Momma married my Daddy and how lucky we were to have had any of it, much less all of it. All of it.

Facebook. May 18. 2019

Here is what I’ve learned:
It took fifteen years for the weight of grief not to sit inside me like a millstone. It took thirteen years for the nightmares to stop. It raged back into full flower when we buried Pop on the ninth anniversary, which pretty much ruined this day. I’ve stopped trying to mark it any special way, other than remembering. One year, I shopped for toilets. One year, I saw my first Andy Warhol and I met my mother in law for the first time (who I love and adore and know he would have loved). One year, I accepted the job offer of my dreams. One year, I slipped two discs in my back and two in my neck and ended up in the hospital for four days. Almost every year, not on this day, but sometime during each year of these twenty-two years, someone famous or known personally to me has been diagnosed or died from the same tumor...Ted Kennedy, Holly, Catherine, Beau Biden, John McCain.

The last three years, my peony bushes have been in full flower on his anniversary. This year, I clipped their blossoms when they couldn’t hold their heads up any more. My house smells amazing, nothing like funeral lilies or bereaved brisket, and the windows are open to the chatter of birds and bees. Not shut tight against the already too hot May sun, to keep in the air conditioning and the sounds of whispers and weeping and sad laughter drizzled over the half-hearted attempts to not sink into the couch and blend into the Laura Ashley upholstery.

I used to play the what-if game when I was younger: what if he hadn’t died? What would be happening now? That game was zero fun. It took me four years to retire from playing it a world-class professional level. It was unwinnable, ungettable, and unsatisfying. I didn’t need to remind myself he wasn’t around. That was always apparent. Not necessarily worthy of a nervous breakdown, just an immutable fact that was never going to change. It was always going to be heavy.

But I had the choice of whether to heft it to smash or to sculpt. How to carry it, where to put it down...how to put it down, how to examine it, not like a pathologist with a tumor, but like a diamond cutter looking for the right place to tap so this copralite of the soul will shatter and reveal something priceless amidst the awful, unnecessary waste. I received this last assignment when I was 18. I begin this work in earnest on the twenty-second year, because it took me until I was 40 to figure out the instructions. I am as old as he was when he found out he was dying. He’s been dead for over half my life.

I’m not sure what happens when we die. I know the hope I have about it. But I do know that love never dies, never fails, and is relentless in its self-proclamation. I know that love is miraculous, subverts the space-time continuum, and does not obey any rules. I believe he sees me when I am loving well, when my best days happen. And while that will never be as good as him being whole and here and happy, this is indeed an abundant grace. Appreciating it has been a long time coming—my emotional palate was reluctant to allow it. It has become such sweetness, such a balm. But first, it made me cry and gag, and it may always do that, at some point, no matter how ok I am with it. And that is love, too. We are bound to those we love, and they are bound to us. And love always wins.

Thanks be to God.

I love you, Daddy. Thank you for being mine.

Love,
rachie

Facebook. May 18. 2014

Thinking about this guy, today. Twenty-seven years…time is such a strange creature. Being his child is such a profound gift, and I miss him every day. No matter how much time we had together, I would have always wanted more. I know he’s with me and around me, in that mystical way love has of making time and space and death meaningless. I take him everywhere with me. I think about what he’d say or suggest when life gets weird. When I can still my mind and feel the rumble of his voice in my heart, sometimes I get a whiff of pipe smoke and Stetson aftershave and I know he’s right beside me and cheering me on. I had the very best dad in the whole wide world, and I am so grateful.