Today marks the sixth anniversary of your passing, though it feels strangely similar to the first. Your daughter and me, alone at home, the world around us forever changed. The grief in this sixth year is palpable, encompassing, wrenching -- and for once, it is not about you. You, instead, are the foundation I lean upon when life becomes unsteady. You are the faith I have that everything will be okay.

I won’t bore you with the details. You already know that the coronavirus has all but halted our lives, that my acupuncture practice closed its doors mere weeks after opening, that schools are closed and play dates are cancelled, and we see none of this letting up anytime soon. You know that my mother was diagnosed with stage four sarcoma in May, that we have been caring for her through scans and surgeries and treatments, all the while terrified of exposing her and my dad to this novel virus that has taken over half a million lives. You know that the violence and inequities placed upon our brothers and sisters of color continue to plague us, that a country founded on racist ideology cannot change without a disproportionate amount of suffering, bloodshed, and tears, that the road ahead is marred with adversity. You know that the collective grief in our world at present is more than most of us have ever been asked to endure. You know that we are hitting a tipping point. Something is about to shift.

More than once I’ve compared this year to the year that you left. The chaos, the confusion, the groundlessness. Except that I am not alone this time, because much of what is happening is happening to all of us. Sometimes that makes it easier, often it feels harder. We, in our grief, are required to charge forward, to hold each other up, to protect our children, to give whatever we have left of our spirit to those who need it most. There is not one of us that is immune to the shock, heartache, and fear that has reverberated across this planet. While not much can compare to that first year without you, 2020 comes close.

But what I know, because you’ve shown me, is that masterpieces are born of chaos, that grief is a catalyst to transformation. The tumult of the journey is real, but anxiety, grief, and anguish are no match for the brilliance of our humanity. While our conscious minds reel with fear and uncertainty, our souls have been waiting for this. A dismantling of our perceptions of what life should be; an opportunity to imagine, and to fight for, a life worthy of our greatness. What I know, because you’re with me, is that no ounce of hardship is wasted. Every teardrop sows the seeds for a new beginning.

On this July 22, as your daughter completes her sixth year around the sun, her greatness is remarkable. I imagine your pride as you witness the fullness of her being: her easy laughter, the sound of bells; her voice, wise and clear; the starlight shining through her eyes. I imagine, as her talents unfold and her wonderment explodes, the gift that your presence would bring. I may never stop wishing for that simple witnessed moment of father and daughter together, in adoration, in love. And yet, some things are not for me to witness. You are, undoubtedly, with her. We call you her angel.
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Soar on, sweet George. We love and honor you fiercely, forever, in our family of four -- George, Tony, Nova & Joanne.

It is September already.  Somehow, we survived the summer.  11 weeks of cramming, racing, barreling through -- the result of me being in school full-time while Nova was out for the summer -- nearly did me in.  Thank goodness for Moms, and Tonys, and Aunties, without whom I could not have succeeded. One summer down, one more to go.

It’s taken me the entire past month to decompress, to find a new calm.  But just this week I caught myself singing a tune in the car on the way to class, tapping to the beat while waiting for the light to change.  It’s amazing how these little things can bring joy in the most mundane of moments. I delighted at my ability to sing again, to feel music in my body, to feel joy without cause.  

This in stark contrast to the hyper-focused, muscles-clenched, don’t-let-things-fall-apart mentality that I adopted to survive the summer.  It wasn’t by choice (necessarily), but it was my default. I kept dreaming of ways to do things differently, to be differently, but my patterns got the best of me.  Do, Achieve, Work, Stress, Push, Worry, Repeat.

I let relationships fall to the wayside.  I abandoned self-care.  My need to get every little thing just right, to have all the pieces securely locked into place, to outperform, to prove something, to achieve competence, and to also be loved by my daughter -- meant that there was nothing left for me, or anyone else.  About halfway through, I felt rather lonely. I wasn’t the person I wanted to be, and this affected my ability to authentically connect with the people I love. I was running a rat race that I had created, and I was running it alone.

Sitting here, on the other side, in a quiet house with my thoughts and a laptop, I ask:  
Why do we do this?  Where is the joy in pushing ourselves to the limit?  Why are we constantly competing, even when nobody’s watching?

Here is what I know:  When I die, I will not care about the accolades, or who I was able to impress, or even how successful my ventures were.  I will care about the people I loved, whether I loved them well enough, whether they knew it, and felt it. I will not care about how hard I worked but rather what and whom I worked hard for, that it was meaningful, and resonant.  I will wish that I hadn’t depleted myself as many times as I did, to achieve a false sense of security.  And I will be incredibly grateful to those who stood by me while I learned this lesson, perhaps more than once, because they are the only reason I care about this life after all.  Our people are everything.

Life is a constant barrage of trials and errors.  We will not do many things right, but we can use the gift of hindsight to do it better next time.  Never perfect -- just better.
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