My Father Correcting Your Latin from Heaven

On grief, year two.

My father would have been 81 on January 17.

Mom, who used to be a hospice chaplain, told me from before he died that the grieving process might not even feel like it starts until about a year after. She was right.

I spent much of the first year after his death being grateful that his life was so good, and relieved that his passing was as good as one can hope for as of now. He was surrounded by his family, lived his final days with very little pain and in relative comfort. He had said what he needed to say, done what he needed to do. In the marvelous book Final Gifts, which I highly recommend to anyone dealing with death and grief, the authors write at length about how people need to finish business before they die. It’s hard to watch those who are disconnected or estranged from loved ones hold on to life, hoping to make some sort of reconciliation. My dad didn’t do that. We were close until the end, and even though I could not be physically there in North Carolina with the family, we had spent a beautiful last Thanksgiving and last Easter together. I was on the phone the morning he lost consciousness, and his eyes opened when he heard me as my step-mother held the phone to him. My step-mother, step-brother, sister in law and their two children were there.

While I may not have been the absolute best daughter possible, I could have been a whole lot worse. I rarely missed holidays with my parents (Thanksgiving with Dad, Christmas with Mom, Father’s Day with Dad, Mother’s Day with Mom, etc.) and when I did, I regretted it terribly. I never really stopped hoping to turn out the way my dad wished I would have, but I came close enough. In about the ten years before he died, I reckoned a great deal with the fact that I had to live my own life, not his or one he might have imagined for me.

He didn’t want me to be a union organizer, but there I went, and had a successful first career before a lot of people have “found themselves.” The next few iterations have had their moments, but I never was out of touch. I texted or called every single day and called at least once a week almost my whole life. At the end we talked about every other day, for maybe the last six months. Thanks to my mom’s experience and advice in hospice, and my gift for occasionally just facing a hard reality, I was able to be helpful to my father and step-mother as they navigated his final stages of pulmonary fibrosis.

So it is with a less heavy heart than I might have had that I celebrated his 81st birthday in heaven. But still, I was sad. I wanted to commemorate the day in some way, and perhaps I should have gone to a religious service, but I’m not longer at home in any religious congregation in town. I might pop by the Catholic church in walking distance for Mass soon… at least it’s calm, and no one is being hysterical. If I want hysteria, I can spend the day with any number of seventh graders and get paid for it.

I subbed at the school where they teach Latin on the day of Dad’s birthday. He would have loved that. I read along in the Latin textbook and thought about how he wanted me to take Latin in middle school. Latin is a wonderful language, and a pillar of Western Civilization - of which I am a fan. Learning Latin teaches a way of thinking that requires discipline - discipline today’s kids will find useful in their futures.

I was having a hard time in life back in 2018 when I started teaching, and my dad was surprised at how successful I was. “We didn’t think she’d last a day,” I heard him say to my uncle when maybe he thought I couldn’t hear. He didn’t mean to be unkind. He just didn’t know certain aspects of who I became. Everything I’ve been through is what makes it possible for me to both have empathy with and keep up with the kids. Where he saw a failure to conform, what I developed was toughness and the ability improvise. “Okay, so that’s what we’re doing today!”

Life may not always be more fun when you spend your time running up and down the class ladder, but it certainly gives one perspective.

My old friend Josh used to say that when he found he was angry at something someone did, he would try to understand why they did it. This is perhaps how he became one of the most kind and honorable men I know, and at a young age. Having lived a life that one would not expect for a Southern daughter of two ministers and Yale grad, I can imagine more than you might think.

I wish I could text Dad updates and tell him fun stories of the kids. That’s the second year of grief for me. My life is going on… he can no longer be around for the journey.

At least not via phone. I do believe he was correcting the kids’ Latin from heaven.

He loved my flower pictures.