As the year went on, I'd catch glimpses of him in my sleep but never really connected with him and he never spoke to me. It left me in such a state of limbo, and I felt tremendously unsettled by his death.
So as I trudged off to Burning Man this year, I made a commitment to spend as much time in the Temple as I needed to feel at peace with his loss. I can't say my father saw much redeeming value to Burning Man -- "you're crazy to put yourself through that," he'd say. But on the day that marked the anniversary of the day he entered the hospital (fully expecting to come home), I sat in the Temple and wept and spoke to him; to be honest, I might even have cursed him a little for his stubbornness. I walked around looking at the the tributes that were written to other fathers and loved ones lost, wondering if those people had found peace.
Finally, after wandering aimlessly for an hour, I sat on the edge of the second floor platform and leaned my head forward to rest against a beam, tears dropping from my eyes. I looked down and saw that my tears were falling on a box holding someone's ashes -- a mother who was loved and hated, and who was brought to the Playa and left to disappear in the ashes of the Temple burn.
In a split second, everything fell away and I was completely and utterly alone. The hundreds of people around me disappeared, and the world went silent. In that moment, I understood that my dad was there, had been there all along, and that it was my own anger and sorrow that had kept me from him. I understood that I needed to forgive him for leaving us too soon, and that I had to forgive myself for not having been a better daughter in the last year of his life.
As the world came back into focus, I felt a profound sense of peace and quietude, and walked away knowing that I would never question my dad's presence again. It's one of the best moments I've ever had with my father.
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This post is woefully late, which bums me out, but I've been swamped with two great projects for TimesTwo, and a short-notice trip to Florida. So, I'm cutting myself a bit of slack and getting the post up despite the lateness of it. This post is part of the Best of 2009 Challenge.