The complexities of grief
The complexities of grief
Dispatches from the art studio (aka my couch), the symbolism of peonies, and examining the complexities of my grief for my father.
All this week, I watched this beautiful bouquet of peonies on the coffee table undergo a stunning color transformation, changing from a half dozen vibrant pink buds into large, cup-shaped white blooms. I thought they were losing color. The florists subreddit tells me that they are a variety called Coral Charms and that’s what they do when they open and flower. I had no idea.
I took a photo daily to document the change. Half the blooms gently faded to a pale cream blush. Others in the bouquet lost their color more dramatically, their petals deepening to a dark red, like old blood stains, while the edges began to curl and turn white. The two colors clashed as if in battle. This particular shade of pink on these Coral Charms is the exact persimonny pink of my once favorite vintage cardigan—it is my happy color. The white ones felt a touch morose, like a ghostly apparition. I couldn’t decide which color I enjoyed more.
Once fully bloomed, the petals started dropping, sending little yellow plumes of pollen from their stamens into the air. This could have been the source of our sneezing and itchy eyes. Late at night when the apartment was quiet, I could hear an audible thud as they hit the table one by one. How can something that weighs literally nothing make a sound as it lands?
I am not one of those people who regularly stops by a deli to pick up a bouquet of flowers on my way home. It’s stupid I know, but I rarely want to spend money on something that will die in a week or less—not even something that brings me so much joy. I’ll admit this here even at the risk of sounding ridiculously cheap. I still get joy out of visiting all the flowers at bodegas and markets on my walks, and the kids know that the only thing I want for Mother’s Day is peonies. At least once a year I get to enjoy them at home. I just didn’t know that I would be getting a dramatic show this year. I felt like I was witnessing the arc of life and death.
This week’s drawing—I’m in a peony phase
I have entered a floral phase in my drawings. It’s not surprising since there are flowers everywhere right now. I grab a long-neglected tonal grey sketchbook from the shelf and a single white charcoal pencil. I get to work. I usually draw late at night, past 11pm. It’s a ridiculous hour of darkness that already puts a strain on my aging eyes. I clip a tiny LED light onto my sketchbook.
This is how I’ve made my drawings over the past six months, on the couch with this tiny light. I am still avoiding color—or I should say, I’m not very motivated to break into color just yet (also, I’m lazy), but this white on tone drawing shakes things up just enough that it’s a diversion from the rut of charcoal drawings that I’ve been exclusively making.
The next morning, I rummage around for a small rectangular pan of gold watercolor paint in my desk drawers that I remember seeing. I bought it nearly ten years ago, but it’s never been opened. I dip the smallest paintbrush that I can find into a glass of drinking water that is already on my desk and test the viability of the paint. I’m pleased when I see that the water activates the pigment. I dot the stamens with flecks of gold. I have always loved a bit of sparkle.
May has come to represent the fragility of life
Somehow, May has rolled around again. It always does. Out of all the months of the year, May has come to embody a dizzying dread of the most fragile memories that I’m still trying to sort through for the past ten years. I’m still collecting my thoughts on what the significance of a ten-year anniversary of losing someone means. That’s for next week, but today I’m thinking about someone else: my dad would have been 80 today.
As the intensity of the Covid and Alzheimers memory fades with time, what I’m left with is my own reckoning of what I’ve had to tell myself for years in order to love him as a father—because I didn’t love him as a person. He didn’t deserve our love or forgiveness, but family relationships are thorny webs and I felt a deep-seated familial obligation to hold him in my life, the same way my mom did. I don’t know where this comes from. She took care of him till the very end. The abused taking care of her abuser.
Even now, I look back with the filtered lens of nostalgia, glossing over some hard truths about our family that I still don’t want to face. It’s more like a sadness than a hatred of what my father represented, and an empty hole of a tragic ending from a devastating illness that takes everything from a family.
I think that’s why during the last few years of his life when he metamorphosed from an undiagnosed bi-polar presence in our lives to an Alzheimers patient who became a stranger, we were able to disassociate. This really crystalized for me the first time he looked at me without any trace of recognition. He didn’t know who I was, which can only be described as a surreal experience. For me, that was all I needed to move forward with this version of a person who I knew was slowly dying. I imagine this is how my mom endured the caretaking years.
Grief and joy can coexist
She always wanted ten years for herself, free from my dad. This is why grief and joy can coexist. His swift Covid death freed him from the indignity of Alzheimers, but also granted my mom freedom in a way she could not manage to escape otherwise. I’ve learned not to question people’s choices, nor make judgments on something that I have not experienced myself. Often, life is not simply that binary.
I’ve only met one other person who was able to truly understand why I kept a relationship with my father despite who he was. It’s rooted in our compassion for where our fathers came from that explains—but does not excuse—violent behaviors. The cycle of abuse often proves impossible to break. Maybe it’s misplaced compassion, but we do the things we need to do in order to get through relationships with certain people that we feel obligated towards. I know not everyone agrees with this philosophy. Some people can walk away. I just always saw him as a tragic figure, rather than a monster.
We don’t really talk about him much between us, my mom and I, but I think about him a lot. Sometimes I miss him. I know we both do, despite everything. This 80th birthday will pass without any mention from my own family either, and I’m not inclined to remind them. I’d rather my kids preserve their memories of him before the illness made things difficult, when they were still little and followed him around his garden. As terrible of a father as he was, he was a much better grandparent, perhaps as an attempt to redeem his past failures. He was always good with babies and small children. They were the ones who were able to give him the unconditional love that he craved his entire life. But even the innocent hearts of children, who are shielded from the truths of how cruel life can be, has a shelf life.
And this could be why I insist on bringing peonies into my home in May, which coincides with his birthday because it reminds me of the beautiful white peonies that he grew in his garden. He was a champion gardener and I looked forward to peony season in the Spring. He would always cut three or four stems for me, shaking them gently to loosen any ants, before handing them to me every May.
Related reading
A few links of interest this week
Thirty-Seven Theses on Time and Memory (The Common)
Looking to the Past for Early Meanings of Nostalgia Before it reminded us of the glory days, nostalgia was a medical condition involving severe homesickness. (gifted NYT link)
What is ‘lived experience’? The term is ubiquitous and double-edged. It is both a key source of authentic knowledge and a danger to true solidarity. (Aeon)
Some peonies came across my walk today. You inspired me to draw them. ❤️
What a beautiful poignant essay.