When Bob passed away three years ago, I was ‘prepared’ to be sad and unsettled.  He was my father.  At first I was understandably distracted and somewhat robotic by all the doing involved in death; forms, notifications, arrangements, composing the obituary…  Until the moment at the funeral home when I stood alone beside his casket prior to cremation.  His death was no longer abstract.  There he was.

I believed grieving for him would be a process, a linear progression through stages with ups and downs along the way.  A destination of calm acceptance.  That over time, my heartache would palliate into a soft bed of memories that I could wake up when convenient.

Grief isn’t systematic.  It’s puzzling and sneaky.

It was sometimes predictable, though, like on his birthday or Christmas.  On those occasions, I could plan to be home alone for my private blubbering.  But more often, grief would attack with a sudden ferociousness from behind some benign facade. Like the Hallmark card display in the grocery store just a few days ago.  I became so overcome by an unforeseen sob of such intensity that a startled passerby reached out to catch me if I fell.  I was gripped by emotion so strong that I felt almost unable to breathe, my bones crumbling and unable to support me.  I felt like I could, at that moment, have been easily mopped up into the housekeeping bucket along with the spilled cola and broken pickle jar juice.  What set me off was the realization that I had been scanning the cards for one large-fonted enough for poor Bob to be able to read.  I hadn’t done that in a very long time.

I used to think episodes like this were proof I was weak or negligent in ‘doing my grief work’.  Or just plain crazy.  And maybe I am.  But I’ll bet they’re just Bob reaching down from the big fishing creek in the sky to give me a nugie.  He’s reminding me not to forget.