by Kelley Tom

Created on: January 12, 2009

"There comes a time, my dear," My father's low voice over the phone was trying to warn me of what was to come. But his voice sounded very much alive. And I chose not to believe the worst. But ten days later I watched my father die.

Now that he is gone, I see my father for who he was. Seeing the life in total leads to a summing of it, I have found out. And what I saw was a gentleman and a gentle man.

His leaving, like a storm in summer, I never saw it coming. In retrospect, I should have run to him for cover.

It felt too soon, that first day after he died, to be writing his obituary, but in the surreality of it all, the words came anyway. How many ways are there to say empty, I was left wondering, in the midst of piecing feelings and facts together.

The kind of man who would give you the shirt off his back, my mother always said. And she was right. My dad versus the world was a quiet conflict. Instead, he had no fight with the world-he was generous in his judgment of it, as he was generous with his students and his children. His intention was to make it a better place, and he did. He made peace with the flaws of the world, and often found a way to laugh them away. Without him the world was a different place.

As my father, he was the soother when the world came bruising. I realize now he was a shelter I sought too late; his life lessons were there for me to learn from, there for my asking. I wish now that I had asked more often. His empathy was evident in how he fathered. How many childhood nights I spent awake, winded and panicked with asthma. He stroked my back and wished he could breathe for me. He understood.

I don't know why the world didn't stop for him when he died, but it didn't. I can always tell, you know, if I am speaking to someone who has not lost a parent. When I divulge it, un-understanding eyes look back at me. From what I can tell, they see it as a natural passing of time.
And I see their eyes wondering, as they are lowering, shouldn't she be getting over it by now? Who can blame them? My memories aren't theirs to mourn.

One thing my father never taught me though, was how to grieve. So for over a year now, I wake up everyday with a hollow in the shape of my father. There comes a time,' my father said, and now has come my time to mourn and miss everything about him.

There is a Chinese custom of jumping over a small fire upon your return from a funeral. This is to prevent the lost soul from following you and finding their way in. As a family, we did this after the funeral, because my husband is Chinese and my children are half. But as I took my turn, this is not how I saw it. Maybe because I am not Chinese. I had written, that first day without him, that my pain of losing him would ebb and flow with time. But I was wrong. It was like walking into the fire, it was a test and I wasn't
sure that I was up for it.

In the long distance of forever, especially on lonely days, the pieces I have left of him feel paltry.
But nothing would feel enough. This is the sad truth of losing someone.

Sitting by his grave, it is quiet. I talk; he listens. I am warm here, there is a slow dying of the fire my grief once was. And I see that my task now is to move on, to start to measure up to the person he was, because this is the right thing and because I suspect, it is my way of keeping him in my life. Because he would tell me, don't miss me too much.' And I am anxious to feel his pride in me fitting into two. I will need it.

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