Here we are, getting to the end of June. It’s a great time of year, people are past those initial sunburns and more dutiful with that sunscreen application. We’ve found the beach towels and swim toys, the lake water is finally starting to warm up, and the trees are stretching all the way to their fingertips with leaves. Birds frantically feed their peeping chicks, young squirrels are ripping around the yard playing tag, and dogs are finding more cooling comfort on the kitchen tiles.

Ain’t summer great?

 

 

I’d mostly answer with a resounding yes, but I’d keep one silent popsicle of ‘no’ stashed in the back of the freezer because I know this month holds a difficult anniversary. Today is that day.

Anniversary isn’t quite right, but what do you call the date of a loved one’s passing?

We’re long past the funeral, and we had a ceremony to commit my dad’s ashes, so now what do we do on this date?

I got curious if other countries mark the date of someone’s passing. I came across some things that would have been difficult four years ago, so if your grief is new you might not want to read how other countries do funerals (or you might find it fascinating. For me it would have depended on the day. Take care of yourself). Also, as makes sense in our abbreviated culture, people have morphed death and anniversary into, you guessed it, deathiversary. I can’t decide if it’s clever and useful, or just dumb and trite.

 

Here’s one site that had some ideas and very practical advice about marking the day, and yes, they use “deathiversary” fluently.

It was interesting to see how other cultures mark these dates, and how for some — but not all — it’s tied into ancestor worship. Is that really that different than Western cultures saying that someone is smiling down on you from heaven?

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For one of the first anniversaries of my dad’s passing, it fell during a very busy week. Luckily, at the time, I worked at a place where I ran into friends, and especially this week, two of my dearest friends would be accessible. I bought a few of the world’s best apple fritters because my dad loved them, picked up coffee (which he also loved), and my friends and I sat together in the grass for a few minutes. It wasn’t the only thing done to mark that day, but it felt good to do something with people from outside my own family, with friends who are family but in a different way. It was almost like an acknowledgment that this loss existed outside just my family. It was them seeing the realness of loss for us.

This year?

I’m just not sure.

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The expectation is sometimes more difficult than the actual date, because it’s just one more day he’s not here. Just like all the other days he’s not here. There’s really nothing that makes it any different than all the other days of the year, except if you focus on a calendar.

There are times when that calendar focus is not helpful, especially if you think you’re somehow supposed to feel something different, or there’s supposed to be some breakthrough. For a while, I know my mom diligently marked the time from dad’s passing, maybe as a reassurance to herself, maybe as a comfort to think she could be closer to it being easier to go on without him. Because there’s this prevailing idea that it gets better after a certain amount of time. It’s not inaccurate, but it also sets up the bereaved to put their hopes in a certain time frame, as if one day they’ll wake up and their grief will be magically lifted.

That sounds so much better than the reality of it being a slow shuffle towards mostly less-hard.

 

 

Lately, I’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy, because apparently this is what I do. I watched it in the year after Dad died, and I think it was the permission I wanted to cry…on the surface it was about someone else’s fictional pain but it was really my own.

Last night I visited my mom on a beautiful evening. We sat outside with a glass of wine and a tasty tapas-type plate she had thoughtfully put together. And we talked.

This morning, I got coffee and donuts.

I wore special sandalwood beads that remind me of the travels Dad made and the beliefs he deeply held.

I’ve exchanged texts with my family and we’ve remembered sweet moments together.

I’m going to paint for a little while this afternoon.

Tonight we will have giant hot fudge and banana milkshakes (well, I will. The rest of my little fam will probably have something else. But there will be ice cream.)

Maybe I’ll feel sad. Maybe I’ll feel numb. But I will carve out space to remember and give myself grace to feel whatever comes.

Grace.

Love.

Friendship.

Family.

Good eats.

Yup, that sounds like my dad.