Adam On Saul
This moving tribute to his father by Adam Bellow appeared two weeks ago -- nevertheless, one just came across it and thought it worthy of a link:
"When a parent dies, as I have lately learned, you are at first flooded with emotion and memory. I reveled in this reassuring presence, rising up to fill the hole left by my father's disappearance. But as the weeks go by the bite of grief recedes and you forget the little things you took for granted - the shape of his face, the sound of his voice, the timbre of his laugh - and you begin to fear the loss is permanent, a loss beyond recovery."
"When a parent dies, as I have lately learned, you are at first flooded with emotion and memory. I reveled in this reassuring presence, rising up to fill the hole left by my father's disappearance. But as the weeks go by the bite of grief recedes and you forget the little things you took for granted - the shape of his face, the sound of his voice, the timbre of his laugh - and you begin to fear the loss is permanent, a loss beyond recovery."
posted by PrufrockTwo at
27.6.05
3 Comments:
Can't read it cos I don't want to think about it. Too scary.
By
Anonymous, at 12:52 AM
Sometimes you don't fear it at all because the memory fades without you realising, and what you keep are their achievements and qualities and scattered moments. Given the circumstances, it is more than enough because too many memories could be crippling.
We don't do a person disservice by forgetting. Pictures remain to see the shape of their face, for us to reassess years later how they looked, and what part of you came from them.
Just as their physical memories fade, a colder logic emerges then, and we begin to see things we had not seen before. A particular thing that was said once, for instance, or the kind of ideas they had; not as a father or a mother, but as a human being.
We take on some of their qualities without knowing, and this is our way of dealing with the present and the future. Without knowing - almost every internal change happens without us realising - we begin to fill voids.
Losing someone is terrible, but there are gains, too.
RB of Gc
By
Anonymous, at 10:03 AM
Thank you for that, RB.
By
PrufrockTwo, at 11:34 AM
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