November Mourning

The Catholic Church--and perhaps other Christian churches--sets aside time in November to remember the dead. All Souls Day follows All Saints Day (which follows Halloween). Our parish has a Mass of bereavement, and since my dad died this year, I got an invitation. And because mourning is a longish, complicated thing, I decided to go--and Mr. M very kindly went with me.

The service was very nice, but I was glad I brought tissues. In some ways I'm at peace with my loss--Dad was 95; he'd had a long life, but the quality of that life was declining and we were facing some hard decisions about his continued independence. But in some ways, the pain is still raw.

I feel a jumble of emotions: love, regret, sadness, nostalgia. Now I'm no longer anyone's child. At my age, having raised four children of my own, it seems that shouldn't matter, but somehow it does. Mourning my dad--and my mom--is mixed up with mourning the passage of time, my changing position in life, even the changing nature of the world I live in.