Loss
My father died, in 2012, after a period of vulnerability and failing health. I did not cry, but was confronted with an unwieldy sadness deep inside.
Letting go of one of your parents is one of the inevitable accidents in life that has tremendous impact and disrupts feelings. In preparation of this whale’s tail I already prepared by letting go of many attachments and consolidated the fact that the relationship with my father was coming to an end in a foreseeable future. There were no more issues standing between us and there was peace and acceptance in our conversation as we had established the true meaning of our relationship.
“It might seem sad, but we are forced to reinvent our lives when a loved one dies, and in this reinvention is opportunity. Which I think is beautiful.”
~Leo Babauta
With my father’s passing away I felt part of his responsibilities transferred to me. I had lost the person that provided a listening ear, wisdom and understanding. What would take its place? Losing my role as a son seemed most significant.
Besides all memories stored in the mind there are also a lot of physical things to let go of when losing a parent. For days I was going through all the stuff my father collected in his life, which was not too much as he led an orderly and remarkably frugal existence, rooted in growing up in wartime Holland.
In a suitcase I found a collection of diplomas, certificates and the likes, most in beautiful 50-ties design. For my father this was his life and the purpose of this was probably that someone would read his life from that, as a timeline of life events. For me it almost meant no more than a stack of papers that are beautiful to see, but definitely does not make up the life of someone. For me experiencing life is so much more important than giving it the solid form of papers. That collection showed me I was holding on to things that might end up as collectibles.
I was a musician for a pretty long time and wrote poems and texts for my bands in the 80-ies and 90-ies. My music ended up as a box full of cassettes I recorded over the years. It was always my intention to digitize my full oeuvre. I spent quite some evenings alone or with friends, with or without beers, with or without drugs,listening to these old recordings and revelling in feelings of times gone by. The box of cassettes, my copybooks of writing were central points in my life waiting to be digitized. Too much quality to let go of I fantasized.
The memories kept me in a comfortable place. Is it me in these recordings, is it me in these writings? Who am I now? These were things from the past and actually taking up space and keeping me from doing stuff now I realised.
I delivered my memories in a box to the local recycle centre and my copybooks went to the waste paper.
I am now running a rewarding business and write these articles. What was in the box and in the copybooks was an excellent foundation and letting go delivered the reality of now.
Can and will you let go to progress?