The last dance.

A letter to my self.

“At the end of the day, there is only you and your grief; reluctantly dancing, trying to avoid stepping on each other’s toes, and occasionally failing…but when you go home and fall asleep, grief will gently shake you awake and you’ll have no choice but to dance again.”

Youadan Teddy.

Tim Walker - Sanctuary Ballet [2016]

To live is to depart.

To recall is to return.

Grief, the standing ovation to a painfully rich existence.

The act of loss is perhaps the only tangible evidence that testifies to our existence and subsequent mortality. The older I get, the more illuminated this truth becomes. Loss seems to punctuate the very essence of life. The Gran Pas de Deux to the dance. If it weren’t for loss that beckons for us to recall, what would there be to recall?

In that spirit, life seemingly becomes a delicate performance of sequential goodbyes. A warm, bitter, endless nod of your head to everything you’ve ever loved or hated, feared or desired. Each experience leaves you as fleetingly as it entered your life, until one day you must say goodbye yourself as you take your bow at the final curtain call.

I think of popcorn ceilings I’ve aimlessly stared up at, eyes heavy from pillow talk and a heart heavier from being no steps closer to empathy. I think of mornings where sunlight danced softly on a face of freckles. Constellations to which I’m the only astronomer. Scents of perfume that churn my insides when its trail grips me left field. Warm stomachs I’ve cushioned my ear into, swimming in the echoes of whales and the soft hum of maternal life in all its glory. An umami of salty tears to compliment a painfully rich existence.

All that I am. All that I will be.

All share one common fate, and that is departure.

I’m no stranger to loss. None of us are. To be a stranger to loss is to have never lived. If we are to be a worthy tapestry of experience, the distressing of our fabric is only inevitable. I carry the heavy comfort of my matted, stain-riddled coat like a second skin, proudly brandishing the adornment of rusted medals peppering its otherwise unpleasant visage. Each one a testimony to relentless survival. The rich patina of its tired fibre boasts specks of unrequited love and spiritual acceptance, snuffed-out dreams and mountain peaks. Boundless failures and redirections upon an outstretched canvas of neutral hues.

Each morning I wake up is a morning I must say goodbye to it all once more.

What a privilege that is.

Like everything, the medals also age over time. Some latch onto passersby and are yanked off without my slightest knowledge. With all the value I assign to them, you’d think I’d run back in protest, but somehow I never did. Others run their course and I’m left with no choice but to bid farewell, leaving what once meant the world to me in a university-branded tote bag at the thrift store. Even so, one would think that grief would depart with its vessel, and yet I look down in the absence of my rusted trinkets and instead find your warm little hand clasping my index finger.

Your two brown eyes meet my gaze through curtains of camel eyelashes, each blink releasing a salty pearl that rolls off your cheek like a gemstone. You don’t speak, nor do you need to. I know you because I know me. The guilt coils like a cold, leathery snake around my chest. I picture all those years you must’ve been patiently waiting for me to look back. Hoping I’d retrace my steps just once. Standing there, drawing line after line in the gravel with the heel of your beat-up trainers as my silhouette trudged further into the horizon. I’m ashamed that I don’t remember the last time we were together.

A deep sigh.

Left foot taps four times.

The arch of an aching back.

Joints click into place like jigsaw.

How long did you wait for me? It must’ve felt like an eternity.

As I look down at you - a simmering concoction of fear and confusion - I see the desperate need for guidance glimmer in the deep wells of your eyes. It dawns on me that it’s my job. Not biologically, nor to an offspring, but no one else could, should, or would. I know you because I know me. You weren’t ever truly left behind. You just weren’t quite here with me. Maybe I wasn’t quite there with you either. It takes two to tango. You rather stopped walking forward many years ago, frozen in place like a deer in headlights by what remained unaddressed. I get it though, it was tough. In my arrogance, I never stopped to look down and check if you still held my hand, until one day you were simply out of sight.

If it weren’t for the beckoning of grief that shook my core on tectonic proportions, I wonder if we’d ever meet again. I wonder how life would be if we never did. Like a carpet pulled from under, it was my turn to be frozen in place. I didn’t move a step, and yet in my idleness, I travelled journeys farther than I’d ever dare to venture. Not quite forward, but not backwards either. Linearity meant nothing anymore. In some convoluted manner, idleness brought me back, and coming back led me forward. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if I moved towards you, or you towards me. All that matters is that we’re side by side again.

Me and myself.

Myself and my grief.

My grief and I.

I look down and see the universal duty of fatherhood. I see responsibility. I see discipline where discipline is called for. I see forgiveness where nothing could’ve been done. I see searing shame and ice-cold pride forming a hurricane front, the air humid and electric with untapped potential. I see a servant and a leader. I owe it to myself to raise you, for all the escapades you’ve yet to experience. There’s no rush though, we can stay right here for a bit and catch up on everything you’ve missed. I’m just glad you’re here now.

I’m not willing to walk back into the warm unforgiving embrace of grief without you anymore.

One must grieve.

To heal, one must nurture.

To nurture, one must return.

To return, one must recall.

To recall, one must grieve.

Now that you’ve got your grip steady on my hand, I like to think of grief as the final act of love. The ever-standing ovation to the spectacle that has impacted my life so profoundly. Much like a grieving relative visiting a headstone to scrub the letters and water the flowers, grief is playing grave keeper. Someone’s got to tend to the roses. Grief is the humble act of pilgrimage. A return to what once was, to which without, we wouldn’t have the slightest clue where we’re going. Grief is an omnipresent dance between the past and present to which you’re not asked for consent. It’s not your choice whether you want to dance or not. Even if it shakes you awake in the dead of the night, you get up and you dance.

Yet, there’s still real gratitude in recollection.

For it’s the closest thing we have to return.