Today would have been my dads 86th birthday. I grew up with an awareness of his age and what it would mean as he (and I) got older, but it never really sunk in until he got sick.
When my sister called me that November, reasonably angry and confused that our father hadn't told his kids that news, I took a deep breath and told her that she could not let him know we knew - it was his disease and he had to tell us when he was ready. I collected myself in the moment of bad news and I talked her off the cliff that she was on - a cliff I know too well. It is one that we, as Kirianoff kids, have a tendency to run to when our world is falling apart, and this was news that was sure to shatter each of us in it's own way.
When I finally got her off the cliff, and talked her out of making an emotional phone call to our apparently sick dad, I got off the phone and finished my PT appointment and walked outside. I was 23 years old and had just found out that my dad was sick in a way that he wasn't going to recover from. I called my boyfriend at the time and asked him to pick me up, but when he asked me where I was I had to stop and look around because in those moments, I had already left my body and was sitting on my own cliff. I said I had to go, hung up and broke down, right in the middle of the Hyman Walking Mall in Aspen. I clasped my tear stricken face and sobbed in a way I had never sobbed before - in a way I have rarely sobbed since.
There are less than a handful of people who have seen me on that cliff, and even less that know I actually have a term for it because I know it so well. I call it Tazmanian deviling - like the looney toons cartoon - because my brain turns into a cyclone and at 33 I am still working on how to consciously pull myself out of it. It spins until it stops or until someone pulls me out. I hate it but it's my own fault. I keep things in too long. I mask them and I handle them - I keep moving forward.
That Christmas, my dad came to Colorado and told me. Every day of his visits, despite having an undiagnosed illness, despite being in the midst of losing his ability to communicate to his extremities, he showed me yet another similarity between us. He kept moving forward.
That visit, my dad sat in my store every single day and embarrassed me in front of every customer who walked in. He introduced himself and informed each customer that they were in his daughters store. He told them my educational background and my riding accomplishments. He told them how proud he was of me, though he didn't need to - his pride oozed from every part of his being. It was a glimpse into what he thought of me, and at the time it was mortifying and embarrassing. Ten years and several lifetimes later, I can't tell you what I would give to hear his opinion of me from his lips one last time. I can't tell you how many times I've needed it over the last 7 years.
He lost his ability to speak years before he passed, and while it has been just over 4 years since he took his last breath, it has easily been over 7 years since I've heard his voice. I still hear it, but I miss it more than I've ever missed anything in all my life.
As the years passed, his health steadily declined and I went home more and more. I asked him questions about his life and about his illness. We went to lunch and watched movies on the sofa. We spoke every day, and when he could no longer speak, I spoke and he listened. He always listened.
When I met my ex husband, my dad was already too sick to move or speak. He'd follow him with angry eyes. I should have known by those eyes - we aren't the type of people to need words - our eyes speak for us. He always knew more than I did, but he never taunted with it.
By the time I got married he couldn't move or speak, but he cried like I'd never seen him cry. When I was with him, I cried. When guests saw us together, everyone cried. I was happy, and that is all he had ever wanted.
When things in my marriage got bad - or bad enough that I realized it wasn't a phase, my dad was so far gone. I'm not sure if I'm happy he was too sick to know, or upset that he was too sick to do something about it. I know that I would have done anything in that time for him to have been healthy. I didn't tell anyone how bad things were, but I didn't ever need to tell him anything - he would have known - he always knew.
When I got pregnant I went out to tell him because he couldn't speak and I wanted to see his face. I got out to California and when his eyes lit up and his mouth tightened, the joy inside me was met with an overwhelming sadness. I died a little bit inside because I knew he probably wouldn't live to meet his grandchild. When my ex made me wait months to find out what we were having, I hated him for it. When you are losing someone you love, you plan and you rush to fit things in, and perhaps there's no way to know that unless you've experienced it - but thankfully we found out right before the end. It gave me peace to know that my dad knew I was having a little girl, even if he'd never meet her.
When I was six months pregnant, around 11pm on a Saturday, I got the call. I was told to come home. My dad was dying. I didn't understand. I wanted to argue. I asked how they could be sure. I wanted it to not be true. When I stopped arguing and questioning, I asked to speak to him. I told him that I loved him. I told him that I was going to miss him, but that I was going to be ok. I told him not to worry about me. I asked him not to wait for me. I said that he had suffered long enough, and if he wanted to go before I got there, that it would be ok. When I got off the phone, I knew it would be the last time I spoke to him. I knew it would be the last time I would tell him that I loved him. I knew he wouldn't be there when I got to LA, so I got off the phone and went back to what I was doing - I kept moving.
The next call came in while sitting in the plane on the runway at 7:30 the next morning - my dad had passed away. I was six months pregnant, in a terrible marriage, sitting on a plane headed to nothing but emptiness. The flight took off and I cried silently to myself, embrassed by my tears. When I arrived, I hugged my brother and sister, greeted the family that was present, and went to work making the necessary appointments and arrangements - I kept moving.
When you're pregnant, everyone tells you to maintain your stress levels because increased anxiety can be dangerous to your baby. I had just lost my dad. Endangering my daughter was not an option, so I did what I do - I kept moving.
In the time that followed, I gave birth to the most perfect little girl I'd ever seen and I fell deeply in love with her. She has his personality because she has my personality, and I am my dad. She has his eyes and she has his heart. She has never met him in this world, but she talks about him in ways I don't understand. Having her and raising her hasn't allowed me time to stop moving, and so I have kept moving forward.
When I finally realized that my marriage really was over, and that I had to leave, I knew that one of that things that had been keeping me was that my dad had been at our wedding. My heart didn't break for the end of my marriage - it had spent too much time over the previous four years breaking. It had already healed from the sadness of a lost marriage and when I finally walked away, I had already closed that door. It did, however, break with the knowledge that my dad had been there, and he wouldn't be again. I realized that my dads absence had been a factor in keeping me stagnant for so long, but with awareness comes acceptance and once I finally accepted that my dads presence should not determine my life, I did what he would have wanted me to do, and I left. I embarked on a a greusome journey over the next two years - one I had never imagined, and one that was entirely worth it - but through all the mess, I kept moving forward.
When you're in the heat of things, it's hard to actually stop and look around long enough to acknowledge what you are doing. I imagine it's a fight or flight response and I am wired to survive, so survive is what I did - it's all I did - for years. I survived through my dads illness, and I survived through my marriage, and I survived through my dads death, and then I survived through my divorce. The way I survived was by moving forward.
Here's the thing about survival though - it looks a lot like living - but a life spent surviving is no life at all.
Our brains are incredible things. They block out trauma that we are not yet strong enough to handle. As we grow and mature, as we are made whole, trauma slowly releases itself when, and only when, we are strong enough to face it.
Remember this: If you are facing something, and emotionally handling it, while it may feel overwhelming, you are strong enough and capable enough to handle it. Believe in yourself. Believe in your strength. Face it before you move forward so that you can be free of it.
Today would have been my dads 86th birthday. He passed away four years ago, and while moving forward has been my necessary survival instinct, I'm thankfully not in survival mode anymore. The downside to that is that I've had a lot of days where my dad and his loss has been heavy on my heart.
Moving forward and never facing the kiss has not given me the freedom I have needed to truly live. We spend so much time making ourselves move forward that we refuse to deal with the past.
Sometimes, in order to move forward, we have to stop, look around us, take a deep breath and pick up the pieces. It has taken me four years to stop moving forward, and start looking back.
In being entirely hoenst, my dads death broke me. I think it broke everyone who had the honor of knowing him, in one way or another, and while moving forward was our way, recently I've needed to stop, look around, acknowledge how much I miss him, how much I've needed him over the past few years, and how much I wish he had been there. I've needed to forgive him for not being here, and forgive God for taking him away. In order to do that, I needed to stop moving.
I needed to stop moving forward and not only sit in the present moment but think about the past and while it hurts, thinking about a man like him only gives me joy in having known him, pride in having been blessed enough to call him my dad, and love for everything he was and will always be to me. For all of those things, I am thankful and broken hearted at the same time.
Now, four years later and even four years ago, it felt week to cry over a man who had been gone for so long.... But then again, if you knew him, you'd cry too.