Mourning Dad

It has been over 4 years since the day that shattered my world and the journey I was on when it happened. Travel is sometimes part of our story in unexpected ways but is woven into the threads of ours days exactly as it is intended whether we can acknowledge its place at that time or not.

My husband had never been to Europe so I had spent a year planning what was supposed to be a trip to the quintessential romance cities, 4 countries, 6 cities, 3 weeks. Less than 2 weeks before our scheduled flight to Paris, I found out my father had been diagnosed with what the days to come would reveal was stage 4 pancreatic cancer that had spread extensively throughout his body. 

I flew to PA immediately and spent valuable time with him. As the day of my flight approached, my family insisted that I go and try to enjoy myself despite everything that was happening. So with a heavy heart and many tears we landed in the dawn of a new day in the city of Lights. 

Almost immediately the news on my father’s deteriorating condition was not good. He had surgery to install a port to give him chemo but he was too weak to receive it and days later he was admitted to the hospital. My brother tried to temper his updates with some sort of hope and not weigh me down with the reality of what was happening but even from my penthouse balcony overlooking the Eiffel Tower I was mentally thousands of miles away trying to process what was happening. He was fading much faster than the 6 months he was given. My father was unable to speak by this point and I think in my heart I knew I would never hear his voice again.

We left Paris for Venice and from our airbnb in a residential area near the art filled Biennale, we were able to live like locals and really feel a part of the city. On the morning of September 27, I was startled awake at 8:30am. We decided to head into the town and see an art exhibit. As we paid for our tickets and entered the large main room of the exhibit I looked down at my phone and there was a text from my brother asking if he could phone. With a heavy heart, I found a quiet spot to take the call that would change my life forever.

Staring through the large museum picture window onto the Grand Canal of Venice I heard only the sound of my brother’s voice on the other end of the phone telling me that our father was no longer suffering. At 2:30 in the morning (8:30 Venice time, the exact moment I was startled awake) my father had taken his last breath on this earth.

The trip, originally intended to be a celebration of 26 beautiful years with my husband, had now become the shroud of mourning which would cloak my spirit and move me like a ghost across a foreign landscape for the weeks to come. Although it was decided that I would not return home, and that my father would have hated me returning simply to stand over his casket, I was unsure how to continue on with the journey of life, when I was submerged in the terrible pain of death. Even at the moment when I learned of his passing, I could only think, as I watched the gondolas glide down the canal, that this amazing city would now forever be intertwined in my mind and heart with the death of my dad.

Days later and thousands of miles across a vast ocean my father was laid to rest in a military funeral in Pennsylvania. Consumed by my grief, I spent that day in the quiet town of Zermatt, Switzerland, sitting alone in the small Mountaineers cemetery listening to the long solemn sound of the cathedral bells echoing off the mountains. 

It had been raining for days and the mighty Matterhorn was cloaked in mist and haze never revealing itself. But then, for a few brief hours, the clouds parted. Before this trip had taken its tragic turn, I had hoped to hike to Riffelsee Lake to catch the illusive shot of the magnificent mountain waving its iconic white flag of cloud over the lake’s gentle reflection. With a heavy heart and small glimmer of sunlight on the peak we decided to attempt the journey my father would have wanted for me.

As I stood on the side of the mountain looking down onto the lake, I had a sense of peace wash over me. It was the first time in weeks that I felt something other than debilitating grief.

For days I had been lighting candles in grand cathedrals all over Europe, kneeling at the feet of saints hoping to feel a little closer to heaven. But standing finally in the shadow of the mighty Matterhorn in the cathedral of its vast sky, my own feet above the clouds, I can truly say there is no more suitable place to mourn the deepest of loss, no ground more hallowed, no place more capable of lifting your spirit gently toward the heavens.

My father was a man of the mountains. His nickname was Bear. So to honor him and the end of his earthly journey I decided to build him an inukshuk, a waymarker of stacked stone, there on the side of the Gornergrat overlooking the Matterhorn. On our hike past Riffelsee, we found another small lake framed by a large rockslide which had deposited a wealth of stones and a perfect pedestal of solid rock as a base for our construction. Set at my feet in that moment was a stone in the perfect shape of a dragon’s head. It became the inspiration for the most magnificent inukshuk ever, a mighty dragon watching over his mountain.

As we hiked out the heavy fog rolled in like a blanket shrouding the face of the Matterhorn again in mist and shadow. It would not reveal itself again to me. In divine design it lifted its veil only for that brief moment in time to offer its clarity and to extend to us its own reverence in exchange for ours.

Fate often steals from us our well-planned intentions and replaces them with a rocky path through dense forest. It brings us to our knees in the darkness and empties our souls of breath. But then unknowingly in its own time and place it offers unexpected light. It tills the soil of your memory and plants the seeds for future growth of spirit. It reveals to you the beauty and heart of the mountain that rises before you and grants you the strength to continue your climb. 

When I think of my dad, forever now in my mind there will be a mighty stone dragon built of my hands and my father’s heart standing guard in the shadow of the Matterhorn. I almost think it is the exact experience my dad wanted for me that day. And for me, that was so much more valuable than watching his casket disappear into the cold earth.

But the Matterhorn was not the only place I felt the spirit of my dad. I saw him in the blazing sunset over the Chapel Bridge in Lucerne, Switzerland. I felt his strength when I was hiking up Mt Pilatus and the path became too high and too steep and my fear overwhelmed me. I felt his spirit of love and kindness as we stood in the pouring down rain on a tiny island near Reykjavik, Iceland with Yoko Ono to herald the lighting of the magnificent John Lennon Peace Tower, an enormous column of blue light embedded in the earth and piercing the heavens.

But my most poignant encounter with the spirit of my dad was at Reynisfjara Beach and Seljalandsfoss in Iceland. Over the course of our travels in our short visit to Iceland it rained quite extensively. We were gifted with a few very small windows of time where the clouds broke and the sun appeared. It was during that time that we witnessed numerous rainbows in the most unexpected of places. I had never seen so many rainbows in so many amazing ways. Driving away from Seljalandsfoss waterfall we pulled over to take a shot of the river and behind us across the field over the waterfall a giant rainbow appeared. Not the usual rainbow sparked by the way the light hits the falls but an enormous rainbow across the breadth of the landscape. 

I started to cry as I reviewed in my mind the sheer volume of rainbows I had witnessed over the previous 2 days. “My Dad is sending the rainbows.” I said to Jym from behind building tears as I broke down sobbing on the side of the road.

Dad was always giving me his sage advice and deep thoughts. I think he wanted me to remember that life is not about light or darkness. It is about the way the 2 interact in harmony. Both are necessary. A rainbow is the perfect combination of rain and sun. Without one the rainbow does not exist. Life is not lived exclusively in the light or in the darkness. It is a careful and fragile blending of the two into a precious jewel. Like my dad’s favorite symbol the Yin and Yang where the far extremes of the universe are interwoven, connected, intertwined, the rainbow exists along the boundary of those extremes.

My days since his death were overwhelming darkness to me without the smallest hint of light. I think in my head I thought that allowing light into those dark days would dishonor him in some way. That tempering my grief with joy would diminish the tremendous loss I was suffering. But I would like to believe that he was watching over me and wanted me to show me the brilliant miracles that exist in the space where the light meets the darkness and remind me that there was still light in my life even though it was being overshadowed by the darkness of his death. I think he also wanted me to be able to raise the dark veil of grief just enough to appreciate the enormous blessings that surrounded me, the light, and the life I needed to continue to live in his absence.

My father never left the country except to fight in the Vietnam war. I felt guilty that I never got to take him to Japan (something that he always dreamed of). I like to believe that in death his spirit is now free to travel the world and that he saw all of those amazing cities with me and that for eternity where I go, he will travel as well.

I know that many people may find it strange that I chose to continue traveling instead of being at my father’s funeral but it ended up being one of the most nurturing ways to grieve his death and I have zero regrets. I would not have had it any other way. In fact, if I had my way it would be how I would grieve every death, by meeting it with the challenge and splendor of life well lived, to honor the fantastic memory of those I loved with more than a prayer offered over a wooden box holding nothing more than an empty shell. I believe that my father’s spirit was with me on those dark days. It was with me when I eventually sat by his gravestone and mourned and it is with me now 4 years later as I continue my winding path through loss and grief.

I guess our time on this earth is not a guarantee and so we should live every day without the burden of regrets. We should love those we have chosen to love and share all of life’s experiences grand and small until there are no more hours left in the long day of our lives. Cheers to the gift of the days we have left on this earth together. May they be many and full of rainbows.