The Memory Keeper

When you are twelve, the death of parent is a life altering, world-shattering event. One could argue, that at any age the death of a parent can be devastating, but when you are twelve it is bigger somehow. Or at least it felt that way to me. The poem that follows captures a difficult time in my life. When I was ten years old my father was diagnosed with ALS, a disease with no cure, and when I was twelve, he died. I spent two years pretending like it wasn't happening. ALS is not easy to diagnose so, they weren't sure. At ten I decided that it wasn't that horrible disease, and I kept right on thinking that until he died. A part of me died that day as well.

The Death of my Childhood

My father- he was a redwood.

He was closer to the sun.

Strong and tall, He towered over

my childhood— shaped me.

Showed me which way to point my leaves

and how to soak in the sun.

He was a redwood.

He even hiked among them,

In my minds-eye

I can still see him—

There in the mountains

With the Redwoods.

I would chase him

and he would pretend I was faster

And we would laugh

and I would find the sun,

Because—He was a redwood and

He was closer to the sun.

A ray of life

in a dark world

Always there—

dependable and strong.

A good man.

A good father.

He towered over my childhood

An unchanging redwood

Always there-

and I knew with

A child’s certainty that he

always would be.

But then he wasn’t.

And the sun got dimmer.

Because things changed.

He got sick—

and then sicker,

The doctors grew more serious.

My mother grew more grim

My father grew smaller.

He was still a

ray of life

But now—

he was farther from the sun.

He wasn’t so tall

in his wheelchair.

He smiled less—

I smiled less.

His silences

Stretched longer

And the sun

Got farther away.

But he was still a redwood,

still strong.

And then—

The strength failed.

I will never forget that

Summer day.

The last carefree

Summer day of my life.

It was August and the

Florida heat was oppressive.

It was bright and full

Of noise and then-

Then, there was

only silence.

Because no one could hear

The snow globe of my life

Exploding around me— the

Glass shards shattering,

Into jagged pieces, the

happy scene inside—demolished.

Because—His death

was the death of my childhood.

My innocence

My security-

My childish faith

That everything would be ok

Destroyed. And the redwood

Was gone.

He towered over my childhood.

Taught me things

that only now,

I am beginning to understand.

I died

When he died,

But I also lived—

I also learned.

We don’t know how much

time we have.

I am a redwood.

and-

I-

am closer to the sun.

His death changed my world. I cannot explain the sorrow that became my life for a long time and how it changed me. I love my family, and they love me, but my father understood me... and I lost that when I was twelve years old. He knew how to make me laugh, how to tease me out of sorrow, how my mind worked. I don't think it matters that I was twelve or not, I am sure it would have destroyed my world any time of my life.

But being twelve, it was so hard to understand. All the emotions roiling around me, I know I wasn't the only one feeling these things. For a while, though, I felt alone. Like no one, not even my family, could understand the hole that had opened inside me. I remember that time in flashes of memory. The phone call from my mom who was at the hospital to tell her children that their dad was dead. The funeral, the husk of my father there in front of me, the sympathy of everyone around me. The fingerprint is his forehead when I gathered the courage to touch him. Starting school late because of the funeral. Crying at night in the dark. My moms saddness, my brothers' anger. Everything swirls around me now, that whole year is a blur.

Eventually the grief dulled, it is still there in my heart. Writing this, I can't help but feel sorrow and my eyes are wet but it's not that overwhelming feeling that washed me away like a tsunami when I was twelve. We all deal with grief differently. Still, if you are going through grief right now my advice is channel Dori: just keep swimming. It never fully goes away but it gets easier. I will always miss my father, but instead of just missing him, I can see who he was more clearly now.

Once the grief gets easier to bear, you start to think about that person and their life, rather than their death. That poem tells a story about a hard time in my life. When my dad died, it shattered my world and changed the way I saw the world. Before that day death was a word, a hazy concept. It had never been truly real until it was. Pets and tv shows are a pale comparison of what death truly does to you. A part of me died when my father died, but what really died was my childish ideals. The idea that my father could fix everything and would always be there. It taught me other lessons as well.

The poem touches on something that I didn't realize until later, years later. When he died, I became responsible for his memory. I wanted to be like him- kind, generous, and amazing. Because of him, "- I am closer to the sun." He changed me. When you lose someone, especially if that person is a good person it makes you want to be more like them. It makes you want to show that person, wherever they may be, that they made a difference in your life. My father's death changed me, but so did his life.

Sometimes when our world changes we only see the explosion and not the new growth that it creates. It took me years to understand this lesson. I am now responsible for my father's memory. Responsible for the positive that he would have created over his life. Responsible for planting the seeds of joy and love. Responsible for the light he held and the light that I hold. I am the keeper of my father's memories, and I will keep them well.