50

Fifty.  It's such a huge number.  To me at least.

In two months will be the 50th anniversary of my father's death.  And I have special plans for it.

Right now, though, I feel I'm slipping.  Sliding into a gaping hole that is that number.  50:  Five and the HUGE, bottomless ZERO that threatens to suck me into its vortex.  The visual - me scratching, futilely clawing at the ground while I slide feet first toward the big, black, bottomless pit.

Pretty dramatic, huh? 

Well, that's how I feel.

Save for six years, I've lived my entire life without a father, my father.  There have been periods in my life when this fact has been more profound than others.  Like right after the death and the years immediately after.  Or when I was a young woman venturing out into the dating world.  Then I went years without really going there.  When I married and started my own family I honestly felt very little about the absence of my father.  I guess my family filled up my empty space, covered over the loss and pain that I had felt all those years. Filled me up with joy and promise and hope. 

Well now, as I have written, I am going it alone.  Divorced.  Living single.  Kiddos doing well and pretty much grown.  Having a lot of time alone means I have had a lot of time to think. A lot of time to dredge up old feelings, old memories.  So many issues and feelings covered over, pushed down. To feel them - to recognize them - sometimes good; sometimes not so good.  In this case, I have reconciled - validated - some issues I have had all along. Issues of abandonment; of unworthiness, of having a hard time trusting.  The fact of the matter is the loss of my father defined my life.

My work with the children's grief counseling group has helped me beyond measure.  I continue to question and to grow and to feel.

On Christmas Eve I will board a flight to the city of my birth.  Alone.  I bought my ticket six months ago even before I started the grief counseling.  I guess this is just my year!  I waited months to tell my children.  They didn't ask any questions.  Didn't want to I guess.  It bewilders them to see their mother upset so they didn't want to go there. I will fly into my home city and stay in a hotel in town.  The next morning, Christmas Day, I will be at the only place I can be this Christmas.  At my father's grave.

I am teary even writing about it. I know it will be emotional but I am not afraid of emotions. Not anymore. 

This will only be the second time I will have visited my father's grave.  The first time was in 2010 with my children.  I didn't even break down.  My kids, they were so diligently searching my face. 'Are you ok, mama?'  Yes I was. When I went in 2010 I thought it was the second time I had been there.  When we returned from that trip I asked my mom how old I was when she took me there (as I was not allowed to go to the funeral).

"I never took you there.  I never went back after the funeral."

That was like a punch in the stomach.

She never even went back to see if his headstone was placed?  Now I must admit that I'm not a gravesite visitor.  My philosophy is that's just a memorial.  The person, the spirit, has risen and resides elsewhere.  But never to go back, even once?  Wow.

Needless to say, I still haven't told my mother my plans for this Christmas.

So there you have it.  Wish me luck. Say a novena for me.  In my heart of hearts I imagine it to be a very serene environment to be on Christmas Day.  In the presence of angels...