The Anniversary of My Father’s Passing
The scent of blooming jasmine is the sensory backdrop of an anniversary I regard with reverence each year. My father died on June 5th. Starting in mid-May, star jasmine begins blooming in southern California, ladening the air with its perfume, taking me back to the days and weeks when we knew his end was near. And to the final day when he breathed his last breath. I remember the stillness right after, and then a bird breaking the silence with a warbling song from out in the garden. I remember wondering if his soul was lingering nearby, watching us, or if he just winged into the afterworld, leaving this life in the mist.
Each year, I think of things I wish I could ask my father, and occasionally I wonder what it would be like to be able to share where I’ve come to in my life, the ways I’ve changed, the lessons I’ve learned. The past few years, I’ve wished that I could talk to him about America, and this year is no exception. It’s ironic because for most of my life America always seemed to be in the way of getting closer to him. America, to me, was the favored child, the one who occupied more acreage in his heart. I could never compete. I was the outlier, the less important kid, except when I was the bad kid, the one making trouble. Then I had his attention.
Now, with this country splintering into so many pieces, with violence becoming mainstream and outlandish conspiracy theories threatening to unravel the democracy that once seemed infallible, I long to know what he would say. I have thought for years that he would feel deep grief over what has happened to America, especially since 2016, and I still believe that his heart would be heavy with sorrow. He would struggle to make sense of the country he loved careening out of control, dividing itself along so many lines it’s hard to see how we will ever come together simply as Americans.
But I believe there would be another emotion coursing through him now – anger. Anger at the horror of January 6th and the president who set it in motion. Anger at the elected officials who have decided to rewrite the truth of the insurrection that took five lives and could have taken many more. He would be appalled at the absurdity of their lies, and the boldness of them. My father had an imagination that often veered away from reality into his ideas of how he wanted things to be, but he never lied.
I hardly ever saw my father get angry. One morning when I was a child, I heard him in the kitchen all by himself looking for the cereal. He wasn’t used to fixing his own breakfast and he didn’t know where things were. He was slamming cabinets, swearing. I was fascinated. I lingered outside the kitchen listening to a side of my father I hadn’t even known existed. It made him more human to me, more accessible – a man pissed off because he couldn’t find his breakfast cereal.
His anger over where we have come to in this country would be deep and ferocious. It would be pockmarked with questions about how we even got to this precipitous place.
I wish I could tell him how my love for America deepened after his passing. How I let go of my jealousy and learned to appreciate the miracle of this democracy – the miracle he spoke of so passionately. I don’t know if people who are gone can hear us as we whisper to them in the quiet hours when we’re alone. I want to believe they can. I want to believe that in the jasmine-laced air there is a brush of wind that is my father passing by and hearing my thoughts. I want to believe that he still sees America as a miracle and is praying for us. Faith is sometimes hard. But one of the things he left me with was the tenacity of faith, the determination that, no matter how bad things get, there is always a new dawn that can usher in change. In the days leading up to June 5th, and on that day, I let myself whisper to him and I let my heart stretch itself around the belief that death doesn’t end a conversation.
