I am always melancholy this time of year.
I took The Poo on a girl’s-only date this afternoon, to Old Navy and for dinner at a local grease pit. She was a handful today, all wiggly limbs and sassy mouth. She’s worn out from playing with her cousins, and she’s far from her home.
She needed me.
Off we went, she in her pink windbreaker and me in my corduroy trench coat. The weather finally turned, and the chill in the air felt quite serious, indeed. The sun was preparing to set, and as we pulled into the parking lot, I heard my baby snoring.
It’s been ages since she fell alseep in the car, let alone in the middle of the afternoon. I debated driving around for awhile and letting her nap, but instead I gently shook her awake. She was clumsy getting out of the car, and managed to whack her head, hard, on a nearby car’s side mirror.
O! How she wept. Her fatigue and her homesickness and her pain—it was a terrible goose egg—combined to bring her, literally, to her knees. I dropped to the pavement and gathered her in my arms, her body so very big now.
Together we rocked, oblivious to the traffic and the other customers. I held her and held her, and I remembered the days just after my father died, and I held back my own tears.
My dad loved autumn. So do I, but my love for this season of pumpkins and turkey mingles with memories of grief. It was in this crisp-apple weather that I mourned. The tilt of the sun brings me back to that dark place with sad predictability, each October since his death in 2004.
Being home, especially in the fall, makes me sad.
I don’t live here anymore.
I find myself jealous of the easy relationship between my sister’s family and my mom, a relationship I once inhabited, as well. They share the simple closeness of physical proximity. I find myself wishing for home, but what that is, exactly, I don’t quite know.
It isn’t here, and it isn’t really Chambana, either.
For once again, we’re moving on. My husband scans the job listings every night—Arizona, New York City, Grand Rapids, Michigan—and I slowly disengage from Urbana. I look at my house with a critical eye, seeing not rooms in which we live, but rooms that must be sold.
I withdraw from my friends there, putting up barriers, so I can’t be hurt again.
I feel displaced, both geographically and emotionally. I feel left out, resentful, angry and sad. And I miss my father so acutely here, at this time, that the wound feels almost as fresh as it did that October afternoon so long ago, when my husband and I visited his grave at the five o’clock hour.
We’d been driving near the cemetary, when my tears came, unbidden. Thinking it would help, we went to see him. I stood over his grave, the earth still raw from the burial. Largely pregnant, my coat didn’t button over my growing belly. I shivered from pain and cold, hoping desperately for relief from the sadness.
Relief came, years later. Most days I barely think of my dad at all, but here, with the earthy scent of fallen leaves heavy in the air, I feel his absence acutely.
Tonight, when I held The Poo close to me and let her cry out all her pain and frustration, I wished I could do the same.
But I can’t, and I didn’t. So instead I rocked my child and cooed to her, my heart sore inside my chest.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:14 pm
Commiserating and feeling your sorrow. I too lost my dad in October of 2004. It’s still raw. Hug those babies tight.
October 17th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Oh, I can’t imagine your pain, friend. I’m sorry you are having trouble finding home right now - of course, I can throw the old “home is where the heart is” cliche at you, but that doesn’t make it feel any better on the verge of moving again.
You should cry…a nice hot shower is the perfect place to let it all out and give that sore heart of yours some relief.
Hugs to you.
October 18th, 2008 at 3:41 am
The natural melancholy of the Fall makes everything worse. It is not a good time to have a remembrance of the death of a dearly beloved one. Better that should be in the summertime, when I mourn the death of my son under much better circumstances. Th eternal sunshine makes it easier and lighter and less laden with sorrow. I hope you are alright. Think of your father as in a better place where he is happy and in comfort and watching out over you. That’s what I do and it helps and no, I am not a believing kind of person.
October 18th, 2008 at 1:38 pm
Fall is my favourite season, I think, but it brings the melancholy something fierce.
Holding you close in my thoughts, friend.
October 18th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
The Poo is a lucky girl indeed x
October 18th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
*SOB*
As I sit here, with big fat tears in my eyes I just want to hug you.
Your writing is so eloquent.
October 18th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
In some ways, I read this post and think, “Horrors, there should be a thousand comments, caring words…” in other ways I am grateful for the intimacy. Grateful to b e one of a select group gathering ’round and murmuring, resting hands ever so gently upon your back and shushing, nodding, pausing. Within each season there is a sorrow.
You are beloved by so many of us. I did not know your father, but you, you I know and cherish. I am so sorry for your ache, but I trust that he’ll be back, in the guffaw of a little boy at play on the beach and in the deliberate gaze of a coltish little girl.
October 19th, 2008 at 12:53 am
Oh, how we all need to be held once in a while - in some way, shape or form you are, by all of us, being held as closely as your girl in the parking lot by you.
You are.
October 19th, 2008 at 9:56 am
So heartbreaking and beautiful.
October 19th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
We are still here for you. Love, your Chambana fan club
October 20th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
I really can’t imagine it, but reading your post I feel I’m halfway there. How amazing you are.
October 20th, 2008 at 10:49 pm
I lost my mom when I was 14, in August. My birthday and now my daughter’s birthday are also in August so the month is very bittersweet. I know that feeling.
October 21st, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I know it must be so hard to be there, yet comforting at the same time. When I read of your love for your father, I am jealous. Because I know how much you miss him and how wonderful he must have been to you growing up. (see I never had that) I hope this trip does your heart good.
October 29th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
But you know what? Grand Rapids, Michigan is not all bad! You’d have at least one person (with a 3 1/2 yr old companion for the Poo) to hang with