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Passage
of Life: Loss on Our Journey
by
Angela
Edward-Mangione
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I still miss my dad a lot; even today—nearly
six months after his death. I still feel his kiss on my cheek and
arms around me every time I think of him. I still hear him praising
me while I play the piano, or asking about my literary endeavors.
Sometimes, I’m lying in my bedroom, and it’s almost as
if I’m in my childhood home again. Dad is in the doorway- halfway
in and halfway out- not wanting to intrude on my privacy.
“Mom has a meeting tonight. Do you want to order pizza?”
Sometimes it takes me a few minutes to come back to the present moment.
Dad’s not in my doorway; I’m a woman now in my own house.
Mom doesn’t have a meeting tonight. I’m not even sure
what mom is up to; we don’t live together anymore. We’re
not going to order pizza and we’re not going to watch TV together
tonight. We’re not going to talk about religion or politics
anymore; dad is dead.
Sometimes when I realize that my mind is in the past—pulling
up memories of me and dad and all our good times, I just want to find
a way to stay there and make it all true again.
A wise person once told me, “Never go back; always go forward,”
but sometimes I don’t want to move out of the past, because
that’s where I remember dad the most.
Moving on after the death of anyone close to you is difficult. I always
thought I was prepared for this type of experience; I had many instances
with death throughout my life. When I was two, my birth mother gave
me up for adoption. Although not a death, the feeling of losing your
birth parents to circumstances outside your control is similar: the
fact of the matter is that my birth mom and dad disappeared from my
life forever.
In middle school, my favorite aunt that used to visit us every summer
and Christmas died. In high school, two of my friends in the band
suddenly died in a car accident on their way to get lunch during band
practice. One day they were here; the next, they simply were not.
During my last semester of my undergraduate studies at the University
of South Florida, my grandmother died. I had just seen her the year
before at the family reunion and introduced her to my fiancée.
At her funeral in Indiana, I saw my Uncle Charlie, who had been diagnosed
with a terminal illness. I didn’t know what to say to him, so
I didn’t say anything—figuring that nothing was better
than something stupid. I regretted my silence later on, and wrote
him a few letters from home.
“I’m sorry I failed you,” I said in my first letter.
“I didn’t know what to say.”
He died less than two months later. He had been given six months to
live and died exactly to the date of six months.
The next year, my father-in-law ended his ten year struggle with ALS.
Once again, I didn’t know what to say to him; so he died before
I said goodbye.
I had so much experience around death that I later felt drawn to work
directly with those who were terminally ill. So, I signed up to volunteer
with Hospice and spent a few weekends in training. This felt very
right to me, and I was very anxious to get started and make a difference.
On June 14, 2005, we had a big graduation party for my training class.
It was a meaningful and tearful ceremony, and I was grateful to have
found my way to such an awesome organization and have the opportunity
to volunteer.
I bounced through the door to my home after graduation that night—elated
to have made such an important step on my personal and spiritual journey.
I was about to ask my husband if he wanted to go out and celebrate,
when my home phone rang. I looked down at the caller ID and saw that
it was my brother calling.
“I’m not going to answer this right now,” I said.
“I’ll call him back later.”
But my husband reached over me for the phone.
“I know what this call is,” he said. “I’ll
get it.’
I knew within two seconds just by looking at my husband’s face
what had happened. I knew my dad was dead. My husband didn’t
even have to tell me. My dad had been in the hospital just a few weeks
before and had a stint put in his heart. He was supposed to be ok
and live another ten years. But his coratic arteries were also blocked;
one of them at 80%.
The feelings I experienced after the news are incomparable to any
of my other experiences with death. It was like getting socked in
the stomach. Regret and sadness filled me all at once.
I hadn’t been to see my dad since his stint procedure was done
because I had been finishing a paper for graduate school. Besides,
he was supposed to be ok.
Ultimately, I didn’t think I would live past my dad’s
death. It was like my whole world turned upside down. I felt like
I couldn’t breathe and like the experience wasn’t real.
Since my dad didn’t want a funeral, I had to say goodbye to
him in the hospital morgue. It wasn’t easy, but I really wanted
to see and touch him one last time.
We always think that everything in our lives will be the same the
next day. We never consider that someone may be here today, but gone
tomorrow—or even the next moment. This is because everything
is impermanent.
The loss of my dad has been one of the most tumultuous and sad passages
I have ever been through. We’ll never talk politics or religion
again, and he’ll never see my first child. We’ll never
celebrate a birthday together again, and he’ll never read this
article that I’m writing now.
He is not so much gone, as he is no longer here in the same form as
he once was. Therefore, this is not just about my own passage, but
also my dad’s.
Life itself is a journey; death is but one passage among many. I am
grateful for the friends and guides that have helped me along the
way. If we were to shine a light on our world, we would see that each
of us is in our own boat- our body- making our way through this sea.
We are all going to the same place. We may not know what to call it,
but we know how to get there—it is intrinsic to the forward
moving nature of human life. Martin Heidegger, a German philosopher,
said that we are “thrown” into the world and that we are
“being-toward-death” (Being and Time). While this might
sound depressing at first glance, we can look further into this idea
and see that it provides us with an excellent opportunity to examine
where each of us is in our life journey, and where we would like to
go.
I wish everyone safe and peaceful travels in their life journey!
See Angela's Bio Here.
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