Heaven and Earth
I have never been through this before, I never had anyone die who I was close to. I find myself going through a million of emotions and thoughts. Every day ends in massive exhaustion. Grief is strange... it's a different kind of sadness. It overcomes you at moments, holds you in a grip physically and mentally and then it lets go but continues to hover over you even when you are feeling peaceful about it all and go about your day doing the things you always do. Regardless of your feelings it seems to have to run its course, like a virus... nothing to be done, you just need let it do its thing and try to rest when you can.
I haven't found my faith in eternal life tested at all. I'm grateful for that. I know my father is not gone on the same level of awareness as my knowledge that God exists. Both have little to do with human knowledge or emotion or rational thought. They are a gift and reside in the realm of mystery. The place you can't convey, but can show itself through yourself and other people. But I am still human and alive and the fact that my father is not reachable is confusing. All I know is "alive", I don't know "dead". I have no concept of what that means for me.
I keep having these conversations with him in my head... "- So, what do you mean, you're not here? Weren't you going to come visit in November? You haven't seen Nikola yet. I didn't even get to tell you I was hoping you could take the kids on the new boat this summer. I know you always wanted that... finally there would've been an opportunity... I don't understand." And I would see him looking at me regretfully and shrug... "- Umro sam, Dinkica, evo, kaj mogu? Jednostavno sam umro! (- I died, my dear Dinka, what can I do? I just, simply died!) Then I'd laugh a little, because of the complete lack of logic in all of this.
At the same time I feel that right now my dad is who he was, but in a "new and improved" version if you will. It feels as if his soul left that sick, old and exhausted burden of a body, which in its broken organs trapped all the bitterness, the fear and the guilt, all the limitations he had put on himself and us, all the heaviness of waking up to the same old same old every day. He is free at last and what is left will be buried in all its harmless and useless irrelevance. What is it like to be fully who you were meant to be, in the right place with full understanding? I literally can't imagine but there is a certainty that it's exactly where we're all headed.
I'm tempted to shrug all of this off as grief-induced incoherent ramblings. And maybe that's what it is in part. At the same time it's a relief to experience something that surpasses what is explainable and could be processed rationally and emotionally... because I come to rely on faith, which curiously makes everything feel just right. I still can't make it sound logical, but it makes perfect sense.
Posted at 09:25 AM on September 27, 2008
It does Dinka, it really makes perfect sense, and it felt so real when I saw him "simply die". It is as real and as mysterious as a birth of a baby. Of course we can't intelectually or emotionally grasp any of it, but perhaps we should try trusting this "mysterious knowledge" in our seemingly real everyday lives. It puts everything in a new comforting and relieving perspective.
No, no, you are making perfect sense.
You have an incredible way with words, and I feel like perhaps I can even feel some of what you describe, because you say it so poignantly. It brings tears to my eyes.
Now I'm the one who's rambling and incoherent.
My prayers are with you tomorrow at Mass, Dinka, and for the days to come.
Was fuer ein guter und so trauriger Eintrag...
Vor allem der Dialog...Du hast Nikola noch nicht gesehen...
Oh Dinka, es tut so weh und es ist so schwer, es zu akzeptieren....
Mit Traenen in den Augen werde ich jetzt schlafen gehen. BUSSI, Kathrin
It does make perfect sense.
Thanks for sharing.
You have me in tears! Your faith is so strong Dinka! God bless you and prayers for the repose of your dad's soul.