January 21 2007

The most searing memory in the haze of grief around dad’s death isn’t the gutteral noises that came straight out of Tim’s heart, when I told him, finally just blurting it out after a strange volley of names back and forth Me not wanting to say, and him not wanting to hear. “Tim. Avery? Tim. Avery?? Tim. Avery?????!!”

It isn’t even hearing it from mum, while driving from Toronto--halfway to the hospital in Peterborough.

And strangely it’s not the feeling of dad’s hands at the hospital. Flesh but not.

What I remember most about that day is the view through my rear view mirror as I made the rest of the drive to the hospital. With eyes so filled with tears I felt under water, i looked back into a beautiful winter sunset. Behind me. Where I had come from. And where I was going? Ahead of me? And ahead FOR me? Just cold black sky. I’ve felt that way ever since. That the truely vibrant colours were back there, before the phone call from mum, before I knew I didn’t have a dad anymore. And ahead was just darkness.

Now, four years later the grief isn’t so raw. But my axis is still tilted . All happiness is tainted by the fact it can’t be shared with him.

And so I want to tell you how I spent the anniversary of his death.

I woke up early, to the sounds of the most amazing creatures. Some coming from insects with voices much bigger than their bodies. Others were birds with sounds that matched their beauty. It was about 5:30 and everyone else was still sleeping. I snuck out, put on my running shoes and ran down to the beach. The sun wasn’t up yet, there was a warm soft breeze and I started running along the water. The sounds of the crashing waves and the rousing howler monkey’s kept me going even though I wasn’t really falling into any sort of a rythmn. it felt labourious and silly to be out so early. At the half way point, I turned around and started running back. And I ran right nto the most beautiful sunrise i’ve ever seen. I ran as it crawledl out of the ocean, surging up from the sea, shooting out a rainbow of colours that washed everything with pinks and reds and oranges and yellows.


I hate the word closure. It’s used by people who only have time for neat endings. (As though any tragedy could possibly be closed, like a door or a gate. Compartmentalized trauma . Grief in a box)

But I did feel a shift in that moment--basking in the rising sun. Seeing,vibrancy and life and possibility . And from the cliff of our land, when we sit and watch the sun go down back into the ocean, I am mesmorized not by grief but beauty. I feel like now, finally, I have rewritten the sorrow of sunsets and sunrises.