Today is the anniversary of my father’s death. I know better, yet, despite all God has taught, I mourn for my father and yearn for even a few moments with him even just once again.

At the same time, less and less of my father remains in my memory. Now it is almost memory of memory. I am unable to conjure my father. Sometimes I am able to picture a glimpse of him or feel a sense of comfort, feel the remains of love, but, primarily, I feel a sense of loss. Perhaps it is the loss of my own heart I mourn.  And now I think of that poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins, Margaret, it is for yourself you are grieving. That poem is a heartbreaker.  It begins with:

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving? …

It ends with:

It is Margaret you mourn for.

One mourning thought leads to another. Now I am older than my father was when he died. How can this be? What kind of dream is that?

Would I really, if I could, make time stand still. If so, I probably would have to decide on what year to choose and probably accept all the other scenes of that time in my life that were painful rather than nice. I probably would have to play that year in its entirety over and over again. Would I do that in order to hold my father’s hand again? Would I erase my life since? How could I even think of erasing the lovely life I have fallen into now?

And then I think of reunions in Heaven.

The life we live here on Earth is but a dream, no less a dream than the dreams we have in sleep. Only it is a continuing dream. We keep going back to it, this dream of life we live on Earth. The dreams we have in sleep leave us. We don’t keep going over them. We forget them, one after the other. They were only dreams.

So, what is this strong desire to reunite with what was but a dream? Is it truly myself back then that I yearn to recapture?

Who is my father now? I do bless him to greater things. I do cheer him on.  Can I not let him go?

And who am I? For sure, I am no longer my father’s little girl. I wonder what my father and I would see if we saw each other again. Of course, we would not see from the eyes of the world. Maybe we would see golden light.

How is it that this vacancy in me isn’t entirely filled by God the Father? Is my missing a loved one a stubborn habit? What is this missing what was only a dream anyway?