Anniversaries

May and June contain a lot of significant dates for my family. There's good stuff, birthdays and wedding anniversaries, but the ones that have been affecting me most this year are the deaths.

My father in law died on May 7, 2002. He's been gone for 5 years now. And yes, I do miss him, but since we lost him two or three years before he actually died, the hurt is not so much that I can't see him anymore as it is the ongoing sorrow of having watched a vital, interesting and talented man lose his mind from over-medication and senile dementia. That hurt hasn't diminished and it's one I simply haven't touched or dealt with at all, cause I'm not ready to. Let's just say it's a big hole, and leave it at that.

The 7th of June is the anniversary of my dad's death. Mum and dad died within five months of each other, 20 years ago this year - mum on the 31st of December, 1986, and Dad on the 7th of June, 1987. I still miss them, and it's always been a bit of a hurt that Dad never saw the kids or was able to participate in their growing up. Mum, because of the way she was before she died, wouldn't have cared much about either of them either way, except to complain about things they did that she didn't like. Hard to say, but true.

Dad would have loved them both dearly for different reasons. The daughter because she is so introverted, booky and imaginative, much like I am and he was, the son for his humour and warmth and spark. I've missed seeing the husband and Dad get to know each other - they liked and respected each other a lot in the five years they knew each other, and I had been looking forward to seeing that relationship grow and enrich all of us. I miss Dad's advice, his acceptance, his tolerance and his wisdom.

I don't miss mum much because I didn't know the woman everybody told me about - the warm, generous, intelligent and kind woman who made our house a place people loved to come and visit - not just once but again and again and again. I didn't ever know that woman, she was replaced by the alcoholic, abusive mother long before I could have understood who I was missing, which may be a blessing. But something in me misses having known that woman, especially since there were apparently a lot of qualities in her that I share, and something in me even misses mum as I knew her because every once in a while, I'd get a glimpse of what I'd missed, or what she could have been had the booze and cruelty not overtaken her.

But sometimes something will pop up and just hit - like the Cadet Annual. My son told me he was doing a duet for "White Cliffs of Dover" with another trumpeter, and I was so proud! But until I actually heard the duet, it didn't hit - that was one of my mother's favourite songs, and the arrangement was exquisite, and the duet was done so well that I ended up leaking from the eyes for that, and for the next number, another old favourite - Early One Morning. And I've been fairly teary all month.

I miss all of them - Dad, Mum and Dad H. And I miss too, being younger and feeling safe (I wasn't, but I thought I was, and that counts for a lot), having a simpler life to live. All the nostalgia that old songs bring with them - of less weighty responsibility, of not having to be answerable - of all the weight and baggage we carry now that we didn't then.

Except right now, that's not what I'm nostalgic for. This time it's because the heaviness is not so much the responsibility as it is the weight of memory. Having to carry the losses as we grow older. I loved them all, even Mum, and they contributed so much to my life, and sometimes, you know, it just gets so heavy to carry that loss with me. I think that's what I want back - when I was young, I didn't have death to contend with and having to carry their memory sometimes gets so heavy, because I don't want their memory. I want them.

Life Eternal Grant unto them O Lord, and let light perpetual shine upon them. May they rest in peace.