Here’s my question…Why do we use the word “anniversary” to commemorate the day of a wedding AND the day of a death? Could the feelings each day engenders be more of an emotional dialectic? In my book, anniversaries are not for talking about the day someone or something, that you loved (and still love) very (very) much, died.
The word “anniversary” is happy; it’s a cause for celebration; it’s a room filled with joyful people drinking great champagne, eating chocolate cake stuffed with raspberries and topped with a rich lip-smacking chocolate ganache, and dancing cheek-to-cheek (as closely and slowly as possible).
Roget’s 21st Century Thesaurus uses words like: “feast day, festival, jubilee, red letter day, hoopla, hullabaloo” as synonyms for "anniversary." Not one single hint, utterance or syllable to even indicate death, loss, or grief.
So I ask again, “WHY?”
This year, as has been the case for the past twenty-two years, I had the occasion to celebrate the anniversary of my marriage back to back with the anniversary of my father’s death. Two of the biggest and most important milestones in my life that occurred within two days, fourteen hours, and two minutes of each other. My son’s dad and I were married at 1 pm on October 15, 1988, 22 years ago this past Friday, and my father left this plane of existence for his next big adventure at 3:02 am on October 18, 1988, 22 years ago today.
My father’s death has been hard on me every year, but some years have been harder than others. I remember every second from the moment I realized we needed to call an ambulance to take my father to the hospital, to the last thing he said to me and I to him, to the last man who came up to me after the funeral and said, “I’ve known your father my whole life.” I replied to him, “So have I.”
After that everything is a blank. All I remember of that first newly wedded year is the feeling of powerful tidal waves of grief that frequently and unexpectedly took control of my body, anytime and anywhere for absolutely no apparent reason.
Therefore, I assumed that the first October 15th anniversary after I had left my marriage would initiate a similar barrage of tidal waves albeit perhaps for only a day or two. “This,” I thought to myself, “is gonna be one ‘wet’ anniversary.” Surprisingly, it went by fairly painlessly. Maybe I was still in shock at the realization that I had walked out on 24 years (5 living together and 19 married).
So, naturally, last year, I expected all the floodgates to break loose. Didn’t happen. Dry as a bone.
This year? Both the loss of the marriage and the loss of my father hit me like those reminiscent grief-propelled never ending tidal waves, your basic oceanic one-two-combination punch to the heart.
But WHY did it happen this year of all years?
Maybe I thought I was out of striking range so I put my emotional guard down. Maybe I wasn’t thinking about protecting myself from a left uppercut to my Grief Center or a right hook to Regrets Central as I had been for the past two years. But this weekend felt like the Universe was holding me against the ropes and hitting me below the belt…punch after punch, wave after wave, over and over again.
WHY?
I decided to answer myself by saying, “Because now it is time.”
For some stinkin’ reason, this year was the year the little Dutch boy decided to pull his finger out of the Grief Dam over my broken marriage perhaps creating a new level of resurgence of the grief over the loss of my father.
However, contrary to popular opinion (and my own tendencies) I am not going to try to find any other answer to the “Why?” question. I am just going to let it be what it was and is.
I am learning to let go and trust the flow without trying to control the current.
Good for me.
Yes.
Happy 22nd Anniversary.
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