Three years ago today in 2020 was the first time Mom, Dad and I were together in person after not seeing each other for three and half months (the second longest we’d ever gone) due to the start of the pandemic. The longest was when I studied abroad in London, during the spring semester of my junior year of college in 1996 (when I was gone for a little over four months).
Two years ago today in 2021 was the last day/time Dad and I were together in person before he died. One of the many things he helped to teach me, during the 46 years that he lived after I was born, was to appreciate a good story, including longform journalism (such as The New Yorker articles), and the importance of finding meaning in our experiences.
Last night Bob and I got to see Toad the Wet Sprocket and Marcy Playground perform at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. Dad always loved music and we would introduce each other to artists and songs that moved us and/or brought us joy. I found myself wondering if Dad had ever listened to either band, as I don’t recall.
One of my favorite moments during the concert was when Glen Phillips (lead singer of Toad) shared with the audience that Dylan Keefe (the bassist for Marcy Playground) was also a sound editor (actually the Technical Director) for Radiolab (a well known/respected podcast that I’ve listened to over the years).
This morning I wanted to learn more about Dylan and found this quote from him on his Wikipedia page about why a very specific date, May 31, 1995, is so significant to him:
“I can divide my personal history into two distinct parts; pre and post May 31, 1995.
On that day my father, an accomplished artist and architect, took his own life. He had always been my greatest inspiration, my wisest confidant, my biggest fan, and my best friend. He was insanely talented, amazingly kind, and aggressively charming. But most of all, although we played in different mediums, he was my artistic soul mate. Somehow, with him in the world, it was easier to chose a life in the ridiculous pursuit of artistic endeavors. Being totally and completely understood by someone has a way of dissolving self-doubt into bite size pieces.That very same late spring day, before I received that heart-crushing news, I also met John Wozniak (who Dylan founded Marcy Playground with and became the lead singer)….
I’m sure some of you that have lost loved ones are familiar with the feeling of being shaken by the irreverence in which life just goes on without them. To this day, I cannot believe that my dad never got to know about Marcy Playground the band, or that Woz and he never met. Because it seems to me as though they had always known each other. Instead, they just passed each other by a few hours along my personal timeline.”
Dylan’s thoughts about being shaken by how “life just goes on without them” really resonates with me, as my life profoundly changed on July 1, 2021, when my Dad died unexpectedly. For as much as I may have occasionally imagined what my life might look like after one or both of my parents died, I continue to be surprised by how it still feels incredibly surreal two years later.
There have been other disorienting factors, including my returning to the traditional workforce full time a month after Dad’s death in early August 2021 and our move back to Evanston eight months later in March 2022. Dad knew both of those were on the horizon, which I appreciate, and it is still hard for me to grasp that Dad never got to see our new home or experience the fortysomething version of me that works at Northwestern University here in Evanston.
Lately Mom has been experiencing an increasing amount of health challenges. Out of respect for her privacy I will leave it at that. Though I will say that navigating and supporting her through this difficult and uncertain time has been reminiscent of what we went through close to the time when Dad died two years ago.
I recognize that it makes sense for some of my current experiences to trigger bittersweet and sometimes painful memories from June 2021 and I also understand that my parents are two different people, who were also interconnected/married for over 55 years. I am doing my best to juggle and balance “sandwich parenting,” as one of my friends refers to caregiving for our children and one or more parent at the same time, while also trying to take good care of myself.
My awesome new-ish therapist recently introduced the idea of “spaciousness” and how we can hold a lot of conflicting feelings at once. She gives great visual descriptions of ideas that we discuss and spoke of spaciousness as the difference between looking up at the whole sky above us versus just focusing on an airplane flying overhead. I understood that to mean that sometimes we have to allow ourselves not to focus so much on one feeling, area of or challenge in our lives and attempt to zoom out a bit more to try to see the big picture.
In recent days, when life has often felt overwhelming, I am finding peace and comfort in simple pleasures, which has always been a balm for me. One in particular has been walking through the small forest preserve near our home (Perkins Woods) and noticing everything, with all of my senses, when I am on my way to/from visiting Mom at the long term care/retirement community where she lives.
Which brings me full circle to the awesome concert we got to attend last night and that Toad closed their set with my favorite song of theirs and one of my all time favorites songs, “I Will Not Take These Things for Granted.” I was beyond excited to get to experience it live and in person, as Glen Phillip’s voice is so beautiful and the lyrics have been so meaningful to me over the last 28 or so years.
Life does go on without them and I am doing my best to live mine with intention and meaning, one day at a time, while not taking things for granted.
Dad, I love you and miss you so much. It’s hard to believe that on Saturday it will be two years since you died. Our family will be gathering to celebrate your life and honor your memory, similar to how we did last year, and I imagine you appreciate that if you are able to know that in some way.
Mom, I love you so much. I am grateful that we live close to each other at this stage of our lives. I wish your eighth decade of life wasn’t so challenging and I am proud of you.
I Will Not Take These Things for Granted
One part of me just wants to tell you everything
One part just needs the quiet
And if I’m lonely here, I’m lonely here
And on the telephone, you offer reassurance
I will not take these things for granted
I will not take these things
How can I hold the part of me that only you can carry?
It needs a strength I haven’t found
But if it’s frightening, I’ll bear the cold
And on the telephone, you offer warm asylum
I’m listening, flowers in the garden
Laughter in the hall, children in the park
I will not take these things for granted
I will not take these things for granted
I will not take these things for granted
I will not take these things anymore
To crawl inside the wire and feel something near me
To feel this accepting
That it is lonely here, but not alone
And on the telephone, you offer visions dancing
I’m listening, music in the bedroom
Laughter in the hall, dive into the ocean
Singing by the fire, running through the forest
Standing in the wind, the rolling canyons
I will not take these things for granted
I will not take these things for granted
I will not take these things for granted
I will not take these things anymore
I will not take these things for granted (flowers in the garden)
I will not take these things for granted (laughter in the hall)
I will not take these things for granted (a child in the park)
I will not take these things for granted (dive into the ocean)
I will not take these things for granted (singing by the fire)
I will not take these things for granted (the rolling canyons)
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