I'm not sure I'm ready for that.
I feel like everything in my life has centered around July 9th, 2013. It's the time frame I seem to base everything else off of. "So and so happened right before Dad died." "This and that happened 3 months after." That's the way my mind has been wired for over eleven months. I feel a bit trapped. Like that date is holding me back. I journaled a while back: "I'm almost ready to let go. Almost ready to move on. To my life. To God's plans for me. To get over and beyond the full cycle of grief. Almost! But not yet...I still ache to let go, [yet] still cling to what had become familiar: the past." When I wrote that, I thought I must be the only one ever to be confused by this emotion called grief. Now I know I am not. I am never alone. The morning after I wrote that journal entry, my pastor said during church: "You are in the midst of a heated battle." As Christians, there's never a time where we stop fighting. And in that moment, I was battling lies.
That all happened a month ago. Fast forward to now. God has shown me that I don't have to have everything figured out. There's no exact timeline for grief. There's no wrong way to grieve. It may be one step forward and two steps back, but I shall rejoice in the progress and not dwell on the pain. And progress has been made.
On Father's day I did something I have yet to be able to do. I wrote down what I remembered. It may seem silly, but the memories that have flooded my head for eleven months, I haven't been able to write down a single one in detail. They would float around in my head and follow me all day long, but for some reason, I couldn't bring myself to write them down. Until Father's day. Here's what I wrote:
"Father's Day.
"I think of homemade buttercrunch ice cream whirring with ice crunching and the smell of salt pungent. A few flies buzzing around and Dad swatting them away with his hand. His gold wedding band catches the light of the setting sun.
"Suddenly, he rears back from his hunched position, clapping his hands in amusement. Laughter explodes from his lungs and the air around us resounds with it. His caramel brown eyes dance as he watches his son perform for the family.
"The ice cream is finally complete. He dips the first spoonful out and fawns over his creation. Four pairs of eager eyes are captivated as he heaps the ice cream into foam bowls. We all praise his masterpiece in unison.
"Father's Day. Not so much mushy gushy as it is about laughter and memories with family."
