Parents

Have you caught the “Ancestry.com” bug? At this time in my life I have but in a different way. I want to know about my parents. Do you ever wonder who your parents were before you were born? I’ve known mine literally all of my life, of course, but do I know who they were before me? I’ve always wanted a glimpse of who my parents were before I met them, like from a time travel machine but to see inside, who they were privately or maybe just to see who they were as people and not my parents.

Yes, I know basics like where they were born, grew up. What colleges they attended, that sort of thing. I know my grandparents names. I know what my parents looked like in photos from their youth, but who were they on the inside, the part no one else sees? I always wondered if or how they would be different if I met them back then. That “missing” information intrigues me. How does it differ, if at all, from who they are now as my parents?

AP "Pat" Buie, Jr.

Sue F. Wight

I’ve recently been lucky enough to read some letters to my mother when she was a young girl from her parents and friends. I also read letters she wrote to them and found that yes, she was younger, but I recognize her in her letters. I recognize my mother in that young girl/woman. I know I am a bit different now than I was when young and that maybe some of the things I did, the choices I made as that youth would surprise my kids. I’m sure if I could actually look into my mother’s memories I would find things there that would surprise me, too. But it felt comforting to find that I did actually recognize her in her letters. The “she” I know was there all along.

Sue before she was my mom

Now, after my father’s death I have found something different. There is so much about his youth I don’t really know. Like who he was before Korea, who he was before PTSD and survivor syndrome, who he was before a painful divorce and giving up three children whom he truly loved. I know of these events in his life but they are events. They aren’t who he was inside, before. I’m sure the young man that he was influenced how he dealt with these blows. With him gone I regret not asking enough, not pushing to find out more about the younger man.

Pat before he was my dad

So I’ve come to two conclusions. One, that though I didn’t know my parents before my birth, I know them now and I’m glad they were whoever they were before me, because that’s what influenced them in who they are (or were) now. And two, though I love the two people who brought me in no matter who they were before, I still wish, even so, that I could travel back in time and meet their younger selves…

Music and Tears

Lisa and Dad

A warning:  This is about grief. My Dad died on February 12, 2013. (I wrote this a week or so ago...)

Songs, music they are so powerful. I don’t know that I’ve truly acknowledged their power before yesterday. On Interstate 40, coming down the mountain between Black Mountain and Old Fort in western North Carolina I was listening to a mix of music on my phone when first one song and then another played and slammed me with grief. The two songs reduced me to a very wet and sad state of tears.

Cat and Dad

I’ve spent the last week completely immersed in the joyous and apprehensive process of life beginning. A new baby was born to our family, one that I hold a special interest in because of how dear her parents are to me. Being allowed to share in this experience so completely with them put my own grief and self out of mind for a while and gave me a distraction from the part of life that comes at the end of the circle.

With my father’s death I have been fairly inconsolable, not trying to be, I just can’t act as though nothing has changed, because honestly, it will ever be the same again, even though intellectually I know the sharp edge of this grief will pass with time. Having to put aside this grief for a few days has been wonderful, or so I thought until I came down that mountain with “Gitan” sung by Garou, a Canadian singer, and “Wild Horses” sung by The Sundays playing. With first “Gitan” (Gypsy in French) the tears began toward the end and I thought it just a missing of him that would pass and perhaps it would have if “Wild Horses” hadn’t played next. The lyrics of “Horses” gave my suppressed grief wings with a power that took my breath and my defenses away. "Let's do some livin' after we've died..." As I took the Old Fort exit I knew where I had to go. I turned on to the road that would take me to “Sam’s Pond” and parked where I could look out over one of Dad’s favorite fishing holes.

Last photo of Archie and his kids, David, Lisa, Duncan, Cat, Bonny

In the peace of that setting, with the water level so high he would have been tickled pink, I sat there and cried. My heart is broken. My father is gone. At this point I really don’t care that he’s “in a better place” or that “he’ll always be with me in spirit and in my heart” or any of the other words that people say to try and help make you feel better. All I can feel right now is that he is gone. I will never ever for the rest of my life touch his skin, feel his arms around me, kiss his cheek or help him shave. I will never ever again walk into his room and watch his face, his eyes light with joy just because I’m there. I won’t hear his voice tell me about his day, or sit on the phone with him for an hour to place an order for fishing equipment on the internet. Those times are gone and will never come again. How can that be okay? How can I just accept without grief these losses in my life? No other man has known me as long as he has. And even though he wasn’t always kind and gentle, in fact was quite driven by fear and insecurity most of his life, he always loved me. He always loved all of his children.

He never stinted on telling me he loved me. On telling me he was proud of me. I may not have always been able to hear what he had to say over the fifty-three years I knew him, but I do know that he loved me. That helps, to a point, in carrying this grief, but the grief is still too raw to assuage completely.

1926-2013

So I will have this grief. I will give it its way until I no longer need to do that. I will pick myself up and live with this wound. I know he would like to know he is missed. I also know he wouldn’t want me to dwell in a pity party for too long. So I won’t, and I also won’t listen to “Horses” again for awhile. I will honor his life by mourning his loss and allow myself to miss the man who helped give me life. And then someday, when I’m ready, I will write about my joy in knowing him, of his life. I will move on. I love you Dad. I miss you.