{"id":1441,"date":"2015-08-11T21:07:21","date_gmt":"2015-08-12T03:07:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2016-05-21T12:39:28","modified_gmt":"2016-05-21T18:39:28","slug":"sunrise-sunset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triciakarsay.com\/guatemala\/sunrise-sunset\/","title":{"rendered":"Sunrise, Sunset"},"content":{"rendered":"

My father died last week and I’m still not sure how I need to mourn him.\u00a0 Being busy with the business of death has been quite distracting, but that can’t last that much longer, can it?\u00a0 Suddenly I feel like I’m 10 again, or 16, or 35, wishing that our family wasn’t broken, that he was always there, that he was a good father, so I would know what to do and this loss could be sudden, excruciating, heartbreakingly normal.\u00a0 Fact is, we lost our father 40 years ago and I’ve already been mourning that void year after year.<\/p>\n

Even though he did not raise me, did not provide for me or my siblings and neglected his most basic co-parenting responsibilities, I was in contact with him my entire life\u2014we saw him sporadically when we were children and then were in touch mostly by phone as I got older, and mostly because I was always hopeful he might one day just explain why, why, why or (even better) acknowledge and atone.\u00a0 He was omnipresent in his absence, my father, my deadbeat daddy, my apuka, and such a prominent brushstroke across my emotional landscape. No matter what, he was my father, and my relationship with him will be forever complicated and confusing.<\/p>\n

So right now, I’m not going to dwell too much on the complicated and confusing, I honestly can’t imagine there have been any new developments in the last 10 years.\u00a0 Right now, I want to remember that he helped make some beautiful things and that I once loved him just for being my father.<\/p>\n

I have a wonderful memory of him singing Sunrise, Sunset<\/a> to me in a car or on a bus, coming back from a picnic, and I remember feeling so sad for him that he would have to watch us all grow up, get married and move away.\u00a0 I cried tragic child tears when he sang “Is this the little girl I carried?…Is this the little boy at play?”\u00a0 And although I was truly distressed for him, I was comforted by the thought that it would devastate him to lose us and it made me feel safe and valued and loved. I think I’ll dwell on that for awhile.<\/p>\n

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