I was wearing my dark charcoal-colored suit at church Sunday and at one point as I reached my left arm across my chest I could feel a stiff piece of paper in the inside pocket of the jacket. I didn’t need to reach into the pocket to see what the strange weight over my heart was; I already knew it was the notes I had written to myself for delivering the eulogy at my father’s funeral. The notes have been there every time I’ve worn the suit in the past year and I just haven’t gotten around to taking them out.

My father died on October 29 last year so we didn’t have to wait too long to start marking the significant passages: first Thanksgiving without him, first Christmas without him, first wedding anniversary, first golf season, first Father’s Day, first birthday — all without him. The holidays early on weren’t too weird. Sure, they were strange, but his passing was still so new and close to mind that we were still in the bubble of grief and relief that surrounds you in the aftermath of a wasting disease. The December wedding anniversary would have been their 51st and as the day passed it was amazing to think how blissfully unaware we were of what was in store while we celebrated the 50th.

The other times during the year I didn’t dwell so much on the thoughts as they came, other than to take a deep breath. This past week, however, has seemed to crawl by and many times I have stopped to think, “last year at this time, I was answering my cell phone in the middle of an office party” or “at this time on this day last year I was in an airplane” or “I was at the hospital”.

And on Wednesday it will be one year and I will think of the hectic day I spent 365 days ago trying to tie up enough loose ends at work, knowing that I was likely going to be gone for a few days. I will not be able to remember what it was that I was working on that was so important, but I will remember laying back in my recliner at home, wondering if I was ready (and not for the office) and I will think about the phone call that came that evening, and of Faith coming home and me not being able to say anything to her, and not having to say anything to her because she could just tell.

And I will think about pieces of paper in the breast pocket of a suitcoat, and how sometimes even a casual movement will remind me of a certain stiffness over my heart that is likely to remain awhile longer.

Related posts:

In My Father’s House, Part 1
In My Father’s House, Part 2
In My Father’s House, Part 3
In My Father’s House, Conclusion
Turning Toward the Mourning
The Knowing (April, 2005)

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