Hi Dad Everywhere
Acharei Mot and the Space-Time of Grief
This week we read Parashat Acharei Mot, “After the Death,” a Torah portion that begins in the aftermath of loss. Below is a reflection on the days after my own dad’s death, and the pathways to connection that opened up in that liminal time.
When my dad died, he left a hole in the space-time continuum.
Those first weeks, walking around knowing my dad was dead was like spotting an impossibility in a detail of a dream: “Oh, I must be dreaming, because that chair is standing up on three legs.”
It was alarmingly disorienting: a world without my dad, but with everything else completely intact.
Time was especially vertiginous.
When my brother drove to my apartment and woke me and my partner up in the middle of the night to tell us that my dad had passed away unexpectedly of an aortic aneurism, I wailed for what felt like an hour, but it was ten minutes.
I remember looking down at my watch and seeing the second hand move as if through molasses. Everything SLOW.
For the next few days, while I was camped out at my parents’ house before the funeral, I found myself following my impulses in a way I wasn’t used to.
In the morning I hopped into my dad’s car first thing and turned on the ignition.
Opera, blaring: “Time to Say Goodbye,” my dad’s favorite.
“Hi Dad” I said out loud, and surprised myself.
“Hi Dad,” I said, later that day, in each of his favorite coffee shops.
“Hi Dad,” to the sun.
“Hi Dad,” to the Afghan vendor at the farmer’s market he loved.
“Hi Dad,” late that night, to the moon.
The next day I found myself downtown, another of our old haunts, and stumbled into a knick-knack store we loved shopping at together.
I studied each item as if at a museum, completely ignoring salespeople who cheerily addressed me. I picked out a mug I liked and bought it, something he would’ve done for me and I wouldn’t generally do for myself.
“Hi Dad,” I whispered at the register.
Now, when I pull it out of the cupboard, my first thought is: “Oh yeah, the one my dad bought me.” In a way, he did.
That time, while wildly painful, was full of magic.
Time was bendy, reality was stretched out and unfixed, and my dad was somehow everywhere.
“Am I on drugs? Am I going crazy?” I remember thinking.
I guess grieving, like drugs, can upend the normal and unsettle reality.
The resulting slippage between internal and external worlds is startling, but also rich.
I heard him cheering for me every time I took care of myself. I felt his heart break when I was inconsolable. Sure, I felt like I was going crazy, but I also got to feel my dad.
There was a freedom of mind there. I felt profoundly okay even as I was flooded with pain, and there was a surprising safety in that paradox. I felt uncensored, unwatched, totally open… and I didn’t need to explain it to anyone. Time was vast, space was bizarre, and I had no need to think my way out of the unreasonable.
It was a reality that was big enough to hold everything.
Was it just that I wanted him to be there so much that he was there? An allergy to reality?
In this version, there’s a reality that’s realer than the rest, one where my dad is gone gone gone…
He’s here and he’s not here.
Time is fixed and flexible.
There are rules and there are no rules.
These realities run parallel to each other and in the magic moments they interrupt each other and get to talking.
“The world I live in and believe in is wider than that,” says Mary Oliver. “And anyway, what’s wrong with maybe?”
I say, “Hi Dad.”
If this resonates…
Check out this piece as a fully illustrated “zine” here.
I'm offering a class series called Being with Grief with RitualWell on three upcoming Thursdays (May 29, June 5, and June 12) from 12-1:30pm ET, where we'll explore Jewish wisdom for supporting those in mourning.
For young adults, I'll be facilitating Practicing with Loss, a brief meditation series through the Institute for Jewish Spirituality's "Shevet" program on July 14th and 21st at 8pm ET.
Sending love across the wild and weird space-time,
Chloe
Thank you, Chloe! This is so moving, as is all of your writing :) I just rediscovered your substack, having misplaced it months ago! You wrote about dreams!