19 Jun NiteCap Journal: What do you do on days like these?
I saw the pain in her eyes and felt the hollowness where despair lingers when she asked me:
“How do you get over it?” she probed, voice cracking. “The pain, how do I get over this pain.”
“You don’t,” I replied. “You learn how to live with it.”
Having just lost her mother, my friend, a former colleague from my days at The Miami Herald, is now wandering that uncompromising path of denial followed by anguish and hopefully one day – acceptance.
It’s a journey we so often disregard, never coming to truly reckon with the trip until it beckons.
I pray a very long time from now.
A strikingly tall and attractive professional, yet still single, I found her never-before-seen vulnerability unnerving, so much so that it penetrated my own fortress.
I don’t mention yet still single as a jest to her independence; it’s because she often laments on the topic as if disheartening. She’s been so accustomed to running things in a #BlackGirlMagic kind of way that she forgot a belief in certainty is fool’s gold, frustrating those who seek its control.
No, we don’t get to live this life void of love and lost- only in the movies.
In those fleeting moments, on days like these, when that familiar dread grips me and we discover our truest selves, I just sit and bear it.
He’s actually gone.
My father Joseph Bailey passed on September 3, 2018, and like I told my friend, imagine a loved one gone and you easily erasing their memory.
On days like these when most every social media post celebrates fatherhood, evoking nostalgia of my own father’s fallen form, I find myself torn.
How much does a loved one really matter if they can be so easily forgotten?
In fact, a collection of memories is what all our lives will one day become, and I’d like mines and that of those dear to me to echo for an eternity.
I told my grieving friend that on days like these you’ll find those dreadful moments easier to bear when you understand how human they are.
I explained that she’ll eventually find her beauty in the dark by adding to her mother’s memory, hence immortalizing her legacy, so I told her:
“Wipe your tears and get to work.”
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Celia Victor
Posted at 17:08h, 19 JuneWell, today is Father’s Day, and yet I reflect on loss of those persons whom make my heart beat”pitter patter”. My dear grandfather, Papa whom often watched James with me often on his bedside . Yes, Papa , ” James Bond always gets the girl “. There are so many losses of those whom loved and walked beside me , as I reflect. It makes my soul long for those old days . However, I agree we must embrace life, grab it, learn to dance in rainy and sunny days. Oops, why is this not a part of being human? Let me walk toward another door, self care and resiliency. Amber