I had to take this one in in stages. Bits and pieces of this story I knew, but the details of those days...they broke my heart all over again. I wish I could have curled up next to you in the backseat for that long drive home. Kim, the work you’ve done to sift and sort your feelings and the details of those days lend a depth to your writing that I can’t really describe. I can picture it all...like reading your words walked me right through the house alongside you on your return and the grief made my stomach turn. All I keep thinking is, “where was I in those days?” I’d give so much to go back and be with you. I wish we could have carried this together. Thanks for letting me in today. I love you...and your sweet, dad.
I started to read this last night in a room with other people, having no idea what I was in for. By time I got to, “Dad reached his hand through the sun roof and waved to the rising sun. Was he waving hello? Or was he waving goodbye?” I was in tears and had to stop. I knew this chapter was going to flood through my veins like life’s blood. And I wanted to give it my complete attention. Alone. I started reading again early this morning in the quiet, sacred space of dawn. And I’m so glad I waited. Your words filled my heart. I especially love how you share all the questions that were running through your head at that time, and allow us to try and make meaning of this tragedy along with you. I’m thinking now of T.S. Eliot’s words, “We had the experience but missed the meaning. And approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form.” Perhaps the only way to process grief this deep is indeed to approach the meaning in different ways, in hopes of restoring the experience in a form we can accept. Thank you for this gift.
"...allow us to try and make meaning of this tragedy along with you." This is indeed a very different experience now—30 years later—to revisit these experiences with the generous and wise presence of readers (friends) like you. Meaning-making gets a bad rap (especially from the EST communities of the 80s and 90s) but I do feel an alchemical process occurs when we can place our experiences within a larger context of our unfolding. I assign meaning as less Meaning with a capital "M" and more a meaning that makes sense of chaos, is a salve, and as you say, is approachable from different angles, shape-shifting with our own evolution and needs. Thank you Shaler for your ever-present and loving feedback.
Gosh Adam, thank you. I don't know you from Adam (haha, couldn't help myself) but through your own writing, I have a strong sense that authenticity leads the way. That you should feel that direct honesty in my words means so much.
heartbreaking. And so well captured in your writing, Kim!
This journey from the shocking news "He’s dead." all the way to "I will follow in his path and take it where his abbreviated life couldn’t." is so relatable.
As if the promise helps to soothe the grief...
Or is it part of the human mission to pick up the baton, and step in where the life of a loved one has been cut short?
Yes. And we can see it in intergenerational trauma as well. But in my comparable experience something similar happened for me when my youngest brother died. I'm not sure that would fall into the epigenetics category... Or maybe it would?
What a painful experience, to lose a sibling...such a shift in the bedrock of identity/belonging. The longing to keep them alive, to continue their dreams, and almost "inhabit" their abbreviated life makes so much sense. I, too, wonder if that wouldn't inevitably shift our very DNA, ethereal fragments of our loved one tangling into ours to live on....
Definitely a massive shift in everything! There is also the sense that they are still alive somewhere (much like you described after the death of your dad). Perhaps because it's so incomprehensible. Or perhaps they do continue living in us...?
I wrote about my brother's death (a bit of memoir) just before I started the Synchronosophy channel ~ because I suddenly realised it was the day he died. Here's the link
All the seams that hold life together ripped away down to the core. Too jagged to repair.
Laid bare and raw until you find the will . Find a way through. Time tamps it all down to a neat but heavy package you will learn to carry with you for a lifetime.
I read your story after the passage of time.
If the opposite were true,
I could not respond with even one coherent sentence . I leave you with a poem by Robert Frost, I am sure you are familiar . It is the one I always go to when a beautiful life comes to pass. You have written of two. I hope even now, it brings you peace.
~Nature’s first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay~
Thank you to Mary Tabor
for bringing this back to the light. I didn’t know I missed this.
I’m so glad you pointed me back to your comment, these can get lost sometimes and never shall your words be lost. They move me, change me, hold me. Time indeed brings all shapeless ache into form, something that we can even hold at a distance so it doesn’t rend us into pieces every time revisited. Thank you for sharing Frost’s poem…how have I missed this gem? Nature always reminds us of the truth of our shining impermanence.
This is such a breathtaking loss. I can't imagine experiencing what you have narrated so beautifully in this chapter. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you Ben. Having some distance from it now certainly helps, and as you probably know, giving the experience the strange flesh of words, also allows it to breathe in new ways. I appreciate you kind presence in this journey of sharing.
Wow Kimberly, I knew it was coming but still devastating to read. The shock, the disbelief, your abandonment, the complicated circumstances of his death, his whimsy as he waved to the universe. So beautifully and honestly described, it becomes a salve as we reflect on our own moments of irreversible tragedy.
Such a powerful, visceral reflection on a truly dreadful (literally) experience. I’m glad its been healing to share it and I imagine it has taken a lot to get it down, even 30 years later.
I too started to read this yesterday when there were too many people around. I realized very quickly, this wasn't going to be something I could read on the run. I've come back to it and I feel numb. Is it weird to say this is tragic and beautiful at the same time? The reality of your situation, tragic. Your writing of the story, beautiful. I get such a strong sense of power from you. You've generated a huge mix of emotion in me. It's triggering my own deep buried memories about my father and the stories I was told. Suicide? Or accidental drug overdose? I'm going with the latter. Magical thinking or not, I don't think he meant to go. Thanks for sharing this deeply moving story. I am so sorry you had to go through this. xo
It’s not weird at all to allow tragedy and beauty to share the same space. In fact, hearing you say this makes me feel seen. There are future chapters in my memoir that talk about this and I was even delighted to discover that my biological father, as a poet, also found beauty in tragedy. So thank you for your insightful presence and care. I really do appreciate you here!
...and re your own father’s exit. Those unanswered questions can really weigh on us. but your conclusion sounds less like magical thinking and more like preservation of memories and the man you believed and needed your father to be. When we don’t know the truth, we get to write our own narrative. ❤️
What a devastating thing to experience. I’m so sorry this happened you and your family. I can feel the tragedy of the world as you saw it going on as of nothing happened and meanwhile, your world felt like it was crumbling. That’s a lonely kind of pain. Somehow you managed to render this story so tenderly. Your vulnerability is beautiful. 💗
Thank you for your kind, empathic words. “A lonely kind of pain” is a good way of expressing it, and makes me think about how often humans experience their pain in solitude, even when in a crowd. Treading gently through my day as I reflect on this.❤️
I had to take this one in in stages. Bits and pieces of this story I knew, but the details of those days...they broke my heart all over again. I wish I could have curled up next to you in the backseat for that long drive home. Kim, the work you’ve done to sift and sort your feelings and the details of those days lend a depth to your writing that I can’t really describe. I can picture it all...like reading your words walked me right through the house alongside you on your return and the grief made my stomach turn. All I keep thinking is, “where was I in those days?” I’d give so much to go back and be with you. I wish we could have carried this together. Thanks for letting me in today. I love you...and your sweet, dad.
I feel your words right in the center of me and my cells are rewriting that day with you near. Thank you for your love dearest.
I started to read this last night in a room with other people, having no idea what I was in for. By time I got to, “Dad reached his hand through the sun roof and waved to the rising sun. Was he waving hello? Or was he waving goodbye?” I was in tears and had to stop. I knew this chapter was going to flood through my veins like life’s blood. And I wanted to give it my complete attention. Alone. I started reading again early this morning in the quiet, sacred space of dawn. And I’m so glad I waited. Your words filled my heart. I especially love how you share all the questions that were running through your head at that time, and allow us to try and make meaning of this tragedy along with you. I’m thinking now of T.S. Eliot’s words, “We had the experience but missed the meaning. And approach to the meaning restores the experience in a different form.” Perhaps the only way to process grief this deep is indeed to approach the meaning in different ways, in hopes of restoring the experience in a form we can accept. Thank you for this gift.
"...allow us to try and make meaning of this tragedy along with you." This is indeed a very different experience now—30 years later—to revisit these experiences with the generous and wise presence of readers (friends) like you. Meaning-making gets a bad rap (especially from the EST communities of the 80s and 90s) but I do feel an alchemical process occurs when we can place our experiences within a larger context of our unfolding. I assign meaning as less Meaning with a capital "M" and more a meaning that makes sense of chaos, is a salve, and as you say, is approachable from different angles, shape-shifting with our own evolution and needs. Thank you Shaler for your ever-present and loving feedback.
such powerful, heartbreaking writing. Thank you for allowing us to reside in this fragile moment with you so fully.
Thank you Sarah for bringing your gentle presence into these moments. Even 30 years later, it's healing to feel kind souls join me there.
Kimberly, you are so exquisitely real in your writing.
Gosh Adam, thank you. I don't know you from Adam (haha, couldn't help myself) but through your own writing, I have a strong sense that authenticity leads the way. That you should feel that direct honesty in my words means so much.
Very well done for writing this. And I'm so sorry you had to experience it.
🙏
heartbreaking. And so well captured in your writing, Kim!
This journey from the shocking news "He’s dead." all the way to "I will follow in his path and take it where his abbreviated life couldn’t." is so relatable.
As if the promise helps to soothe the grief...
Or is it part of the human mission to pick up the baton, and step in where the life of a loved one has been cut short?
I do think that might be the case, both consciously and unconsciously. Epigenetics is a fascinating example of how the baton wantsneeds to be passed.
Yes. And we can see it in intergenerational trauma as well. But in my comparable experience something similar happened for me when my youngest brother died. I'm not sure that would fall into the epigenetics category... Or maybe it would?
What a painful experience, to lose a sibling...such a shift in the bedrock of identity/belonging. The longing to keep them alive, to continue their dreams, and almost "inhabit" their abbreviated life makes so much sense. I, too, wonder if that wouldn't inevitably shift our very DNA, ethereal fragments of our loved one tangling into ours to live on....
Definitely a massive shift in everything! There is also the sense that they are still alive somewhere (much like you described after the death of your dad). Perhaps because it's so incomprehensible. Or perhaps they do continue living in us...?
I wrote about my brother's death (a bit of memoir) just before I started the Synchronosophy channel ~ because I suddenly realised it was the day he died. Here's the link
https://veronikabondsynchronosophy.substack.com/p/synchronosophy
Oh! I'm going to read this tonight. Thank you for sharing. x
All the seams that hold life together ripped away down to the core. Too jagged to repair.
Laid bare and raw until you find the will . Find a way through. Time tamps it all down to a neat but heavy package you will learn to carry with you for a lifetime.
I read your story after the passage of time.
If the opposite were true,
I could not respond with even one coherent sentence . I leave you with a poem by Robert Frost, I am sure you are familiar . It is the one I always go to when a beautiful life comes to pass. You have written of two. I hope even now, it brings you peace.
~Nature’s first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf’s a flower; But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay~
Thank you to Mary Tabor
for bringing this back to the light. I didn’t know I missed this.
“Nothing gold can stay.”
I’m so glad you pointed me back to your comment, these can get lost sometimes and never shall your words be lost. They move me, change me, hold me. Time indeed brings all shapeless ache into form, something that we can even hold at a distance so it doesn’t rend us into pieces every time revisited. Thank you for sharing Frost’s poem…how have I missed this gem? Nature always reminds us of the truth of our shining impermanence.
❤️❤️❤️
"Or was he waving good-bye?" So moving, so bare ...
This is such a breathtaking loss. I can't imagine experiencing what you have narrated so beautifully in this chapter. Thank you for sharing your story.
Thank you Ben. Having some distance from it now certainly helps, and as you probably know, giving the experience the strange flesh of words, also allows it to breathe in new ways. I appreciate you kind presence in this journey of sharing.
Oh Kimberly, this is heartbreaking. Sending love. 💛💛💛
Thank you for reading and feeling it friend.
Maybe some rise easily
I think you will.
Wow Kimberly, I knew it was coming but still devastating to read. The shock, the disbelief, your abandonment, the complicated circumstances of his death, his whimsy as he waved to the universe. So beautifully and honestly described, it becomes a salve as we reflect on our own moments of irreversible tragedy.
A salve... bless you for saying so. To know our suffering might blanket another in the cold, this is why we do what we do.
Such a powerful, visceral reflection on a truly dreadful (literally) experience. I’m glad its been healing to share it and I imagine it has taken a lot to get it down, even 30 years later.
I too started to read this yesterday when there were too many people around. I realized very quickly, this wasn't going to be something I could read on the run. I've come back to it and I feel numb. Is it weird to say this is tragic and beautiful at the same time? The reality of your situation, tragic. Your writing of the story, beautiful. I get such a strong sense of power from you. You've generated a huge mix of emotion in me. It's triggering my own deep buried memories about my father and the stories I was told. Suicide? Or accidental drug overdose? I'm going with the latter. Magical thinking or not, I don't think he meant to go. Thanks for sharing this deeply moving story. I am so sorry you had to go through this. xo
It’s not weird at all to allow tragedy and beauty to share the same space. In fact, hearing you say this makes me feel seen. There are future chapters in my memoir that talk about this and I was even delighted to discover that my biological father, as a poet, also found beauty in tragedy. So thank you for your insightful presence and care. I really do appreciate you here!
...and re your own father’s exit. Those unanswered questions can really weigh on us. but your conclusion sounds less like magical thinking and more like preservation of memories and the man you believed and needed your father to be. When we don’t know the truth, we get to write our own narrative. ❤️
What a devastating thing to experience. I’m so sorry this happened you and your family. I can feel the tragedy of the world as you saw it going on as of nothing happened and meanwhile, your world felt like it was crumbling. That’s a lonely kind of pain. Somehow you managed to render this story so tenderly. Your vulnerability is beautiful. 💗
Thank you for your kind, empathic words. “A lonely kind of pain” is a good way of expressing it, and makes me think about how often humans experience their pain in solitude, even when in a crowd. Treading gently through my day as I reflect on this.❤️
There are no words; but there are tears. Writing, when it is as true and powerful as this, awakens the dark places in us. Thank you for sharing.
Awakens the dark places...and maybe gives them a little more room to breathe too. Thank you for your empathic presence. 💛