An interesting thing happened last night, although I guess it was technically this morning. Either way, every year for the previous 10 New Year’s Eves, I found myself staying up past the midnight drop of the Time’s Square ball, where I’d normally sit alone in the quiet of the house after everyone else had fallen asleep. I’d breath deeply and write a blog post about my Dad. The post usually carried me to the 2:00 am mark, the time when he passed away. This year–year eleven–I didn’t do it. It wasn’t that I forgot, possibilities for the post flitted across my mind at odd times throughout the day. But I also didn’t hem and haw over the last minute decision to quietly close my lap top as I walked by to go to bed. I let the post slip through my fingers like dry grains of sand and it felt like the right thing to do.
It’s not that I miss him less now that over a decade has gone by. I’ll never stop missing him. But I think that after eleven years, I don’t need the same things I used to in order to navigate the Dad shaped space he left behind.
For a long time I had to tip-toe around the new version of my life. I was careful because I didn’t want to fall into the black hole he’d left behind. It was a lot like the first night you move into a brand new house. When you wake up from a deep sleep and try to make it to the bathroom, you don’t know where you are or how you got there. And you certainly don’t want to make a move without enough light to navigate by. But you eventually find your way.
Now, after eleven years, I don’t even need a night light. I know my way. Even with my eyes closed, I can navigate around the Dad shaped space. But even so, sometimes I still look to the light…
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