Love has no expiration date

lessons from a nearly forgotten anniversary.

Dad and my last time together ©Cynthia Edstrom 2017

I’ve been feeling weird since getting home from my road trip. At first, I chalked the feeling up to being tired. After all, I’d spent two weeks away from home, the first week at a hand spinning and weaving conference in Loveland Colorado.  Then, just as I was leaving the conference to head home, my oldest son called and asked me to come visit him in Arizona, so I drove south through New Mexico and Arizona to spend some time together with him for the first time in a long time.  It was an important visit for us, bringing forth a new depth to our relationship, but also involved intense emotional work.  Then I drove from Phoenix to Kalispell, Montana.  The whole trip was over 3000 miles of driving.

I was tired when I got home -physically, mentally, emotionally - just very tired. I slept and caught up on all the things that piled up while I was away. But after being home over a week and I’m becoming impatient with myself.  I continue to feel weird with a nonspecific discomfort that leaves me feeling drained.  Sometimes it feels like shame. Usually, it’s a lot like grief.

I suppose grief makes some sense. We’ve had a lot of endings.  Belle, our dear dog companion of 15 years died November 7^th while I was on my trip. I miss her and yet I’m relieved that her struggle has ended. We humans are freed from the significant caretaking a senior dog can require. Yet, it’s a bittersweet freedom.  She was such a blessing. Now she’s gone on to “get new fur” and there’s an empty spot beside my bed each morning where Belle used to be.

Belle in her bed in 2015 ©Cynthia Edstrom 2015

So yes, I’m grieving her loss and the change that brings.  We are also getting to the end of our time in this house and closer to the possibility of moving into our new home in the next month or so, which is exciting and stressful.  As well, last week marked the end of my involvement in a family business, something that’s been a part of my life since before 1969.  I’m glad and relieved, but at the same time it’s weird…a transition, an end, a beginning.

And then, I’ve been going through a big identity change with my reset toward food and my body.  I have a different body now and I’m not used to it yet.  I still grieve my “eating disordered body” and the clothes I’m not ever going to wear again.  Without the discipline of the “forced march” of food and diet, I often don’t feel like I’m acting in a disciplined manner. That unhealthy pattern of diet and excercise provided a structure I’m now missing. Without that discipline, I’m not sure who I am.

And I’ve just been through relationship resets with both of my young adult sons.

With all those endings and beginnings, I suppose I have good reason to feel as I do - weird, off - like I don’t quite know what to do or who I want to be now.  So, yes, I have many reasons, but none of those feel like “it”. Instead, I feel like something is coming that’s going to be exhausting and I’m not ready. I don’t want to do it whatever it is.  And I doubt it’s about cooking holiday meals.

I received a clue when, this morning, I read “Grief is a Lifelong Condition”, a piece by Laura Kennedy. She describes how she feels as the anniversary of her mother’s death approaches each November, how her body remembers before she does, and how she’s learned to give herself the grace to experience what she feels. That struck a chord for me. Right! As anniversaries of death and tough experience recede in time, I tend to forget them or give them only passing notice.  I should be over that by now, right? Not so fast, Cindy! Love has no expiration date.

Dad died November 24, 2017.  That’s now six years ago, and I’m in the window of that anniversary now. His death feels like an eternity ago and also feels like it was just yesterday. Memory has a way of behaving in paradox and lives in a place in me beyond my conscious control. It can show up vividly, loaded with sensory and emotional information or it can show up as shadows, a wisp just beyond the grasp of my awareness.

---

Our relationship was complex.  Dad was a strong, aggressive, stubborn, and opinionated man, a bright and successful entrepreneur. He was used to being in control. He was a difficult person to communicate with because of the strength of his personality, but also because he had a speech processing issue that made expressing what he was thinking and feeling hard for him and often a struggle for the listener. I am pretty strong-willed and stubborn myself. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we had a stormy relationship through much of my adulthood well into my fifties and his seventies. But in his later life, he softened, at least toward me. As Dad and Mom did their best to cope with her decline and eventual death from ALS¹, Dad become more patient (although never less stubborn).  As he learned to care for Mom, I became a sounding board and partner in problem solving for him. I learned to just sit in his company and watch TV while he dozed.  He became kinder and more respectful to me, and I lost my fear of him. That allowed me to be less guarded and more genuine which allowed him to do the same. We had good conversations and special times together in those last years. Our 59 years of relationship allowed us to grow into and through our conflicts, primarily because we both kept trying. We kept coming back. Many people with difficult and complicated family relationships never get the chance to reach a point when love and respect become real in a parent-adult child relationship, like we did. We were lucky and persistent. I’m grateful we both lived long enough to make peace and to deepen in love.

Dad was stubborn and was intent on having things his way. That never changed. Dad was trained as a mechanical engineer, and he saw the body in a very mechanical way, a life construct that eventually led to his death. Thus, as he struggled with back pain in his last years, he became convinced and determined that his back could be mechanically fixed. Since he was in his late 80s, doctors did not want to operate on him, but Dad persevered until he finally found someone who agreed do a surgery in another state.  He was sure he would go into the hospital, have the surgery, be discharged, and be fine without needing any help…at 87.  He was sure his elderly cousins could pick him up from the hospital and help a little if he needed. That was his plan. If you’ve ever known anyone who has had back surgery, you will know this was way too optimistic.  Back surgery is a big deal for anyone and almost certainly entails a months-long rehabilitation period. Most people need a lot of help, and some people never recover. And surgery often does not resolve the pain. I tried to talk him out of it, but he was determined. Although Dad said he didn’t need anyone to come, thankfully, one of my brothers agreed to go stay with him for the surgery.  

On November 19, 2017, we talked on the phone as he prepared for surgery the next day. He was excited and sure everything would be great. I was aware that he might not survive surgery and that this might be our last phone call². We exchanged I love you’s and said our goodbyes.  The next day, Dad had the surgery. I was prepared and anxious for THE CALL, but Dad came through surgery fine. Over the next two days, Dad recovered reasonably well and the hospital, likely aware of short-staffing on holidays, discharged him the day before Thanksgiving just two days after surgery. Through group texts from my brother to our siblings, it sounded like he and Dad were having great conversations and reconnecting after having some long term difficulties. My brother got Dad home and helped him settle into his new reality. The next day was Thanksgiving. That day, Dad and my brother had a quiet day, then went out for a big dinner at Cracker Barrel, one of my dad’s favorite places. I decided to give them space and didn’t call, opting instead to text with Dad that day, including a video of his dog, Little Fella. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was anticipating the challenge of getting Dad to agree to the rehab and other care he was going to need, but so far, so good. I regret missing my last opportunity to talk with Dad, but, alas.

And so, I was not prepared for the call I got early the next morning.  “I’m sorry, but Dad didn’t make it through the night” my brother said.  Although we’ll never know for sure, Dad probably had a cardiac event.  He had died trying to get out of bed on November 24^th, 2017. In that moment, my world changed in ways I could not have known in advance. Both my parents were gone leaving me the oldest one living in my family. Going forward, Thanksgiving would always be connected with Dad’s passing.

---

Dad’s death set off a years-long long period of responsibility of settling my parents’ complex estate including their huge house full of junk and treasure.  The first 6 months were intense. Going through all their things we emotional, irritating, bittersweet. As grief does, it would overcome me at unexpected times, somethings in waves, sometimes just a tear or two over seemingly small things like the smell of of Dad’s dresser drawer, or finding Mom’s mittens. But eventually, over several years, everything was settled and dispersed. We’ve been through all the firsts – the first birthdays, first holidays, first anniversaries – and then years more without Mom and then without Dad. Mom’s been gone almost 10 years and Dad’s been gone 6. With the passage of time, their deaths have become background feeling rather than up-front loss and challenge. My life has continued and I had started to forget. But apparently, my emotions and body haven’t.

Dad lived a long time and died on his own terms before he had lost his independence and with a belly full of Cracker Barrel Thanksgiving food. He knew I loved him. Perhaps the surgery gave him the fix he wanted, just not in the way he or I expected.

Even though Dad was in his late 80s, I wasn’t ready for him to go. Part of me had endowed him with the invisibility of a strong parent that a small child believes. I miss him more than I would have guessed, but at the same time I feel him with me much of the time.  I’m glad he didn’t have to endure Covid. Our relationship continues to evolve even though he is no longer alive.  I can feel his support without projecting the criticism, fear, and judgement, or holding myself back because I want his approval.

Yesterday, I smelled his aftershave as I sat at the table thinking about writing but not having the energy to write.  One of the kitchen lights flashed on and off and on and off.  Then today I realized I am in the anniversary window of his passing. That feels like the source of my feeling of weirdness.  It is grief… not a fresh grief, but grief as it ages and matures. 

Yet again, I discover that I must treat myself with more tenderness and grace, honoring this evolution of love and relationship that is, while I am alive, a physical experience.  It is going to affect me whether I approve or not. I feel the weirdness in my body, the pain of loss and the warmth of love intermingling into something new. 

With Belle’s passing, that loss is fresh, raw, and sharp.  With Dad, it’s something different, something warm and comforting and yet my heart still aches, and my eyes offer up tears as they well up from my heart.  Love is ever changing, growing, becoming something more even when some of us are dead.

Belle at left, Dad at right © Cynthia Edstrom 2016

Until now, I had not considered that anniversary events have force and energy of their own, able to affect us whether we have awareness or not. How does that work, I wonder? In this instance, I can attest to a presence that, now recognized, is comforting, and clearing, like passing through sacred space. I feel less weird, more whole. I can’t explain it, but simply acknowledge that this is so.

1. ALS is amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, a relentless and fatal neurodegenerative disease with no current treatment or cure.

2. And this was the last time we spoke while he was alive.