After a good break, I think it's time to start writing again. Almost everyone who reads this blog would already know this, but for those who don't, my dad died suddenly at the end of June. Before I get back to the movie reviews, I felt the need to write one entry about dad and this whole process. The healing process is continuing, and I have left the state of shock and have more entered a state of poignancy. It is appropriate that it should be this way. Dad was a great father and a good friend, and I love him very much. For me to not feel this way would be odd.
This is my first encounter with deep grief. Yes, I have had other people I love pass away, but no one this close to me, and no one this suddenly. As I made my way to California in June, nothing could have been more real, but it all felt so surreal. For the ensuing days, weeks and months, there was a constant mantra in my head, whether I liked it or not. It kept saying, "Dad is dead." I didn't choose that mantra, but there it was. We went through the customary services both at the school where he worked and at the grave side. We saw hundreds of people who came to pay their respects. My family and I stayed in California another week to be with my Mom and my sister and her family. Then, all too quickly, things had to get back to normal.
My first day back at work was challenging. It all proved difficult for me, and I left that day wondering how I things could ever be normal again. I knew this whole time that things would get better, but having never been where I was before, I simply had to trust that fact rather than know it for sure.
During this whole process, movies and other art forms have proven to be a Godsend. At times, they have provided a way of escape. Other times, they have been a source of comfort and identification. Watching "Moonrise Kingdom" shortly after his death provided a nice distraction. Watching "Steel Magnolias" and "About Schmidt" gave my grief more of a frame of reference. "Singing in the Rain" provided great reminders of the many times we watched that movie together as a family. As I, Lord willing, live the days, months and years ahead, I will revisit many other movies as well that I shared with him, and they will be more rich and more textured than ever.
So these days, I live with a sense of loss. It is a much more manageable feeling to deal with then the brutal shock when dad first died. However, it still is a new experience for me. I realize now that how much I love(d) dad is directly proportional to the heart ache I feel now. I also have such a burden in my heart for my mom and sister, who have lost so much. Finally, I see the lost opportunity for the ongoing relationships that my kids would have had with him. As I begin writing again, Dad will continue to pop up in these entries. This blog is one of my outlets, and since dad's death is so close to me, it affects my writing and what I want to write about. I know this loss will be with me from now on, and as I encounter more works of art, more elements of art will jog new or forgotten memories of dad, and I will write them.
Dad is in a glorious state now, I am quite sure. I think he also is somehow pulling for us all in this ordeal, all the while enjoying a new life that is devoid of so much of the pain of life on this earth. To the extent that God gives us his glory in his Word, in his creation, and in the wonderful works of man in the arts, we have a piece of eternity here on earth. Maybe that is why it is in those moments of experiencing art that I still feel close to dad, and both the loss and God's glory seem magnified.
SOLA GLORIA DEI
