I’m in Japan right now with my family. For two days, we’ve stopped in the mountain area of Nikko. There is a silence at the center of this countryside that feels ancient. It is as though the mountains create a a dome under which I have felt held, peaceful, and free.
Today, we saw a row of Jizo Boasatsu, guardians of pilgrims and deceased children, standing sentinel along the edge of the Daiya riverbed. They had been there for hundreds of years, and then one day during the flood of 1902—according to our guide— many were washed away. The people took great pains to carry as many as they could back up the hill from downriver to replace them. Some were found. Some were lost. It is said that if you ever try to count them, the statues will change places. I’m not sure why this is so, other than that maybe somethings are meant to be felt, not counted.
Walking back to the car, we followed a road flanked on either side by an ancient and moss-covered stone wall behind which were cedar trees. They rose up around us magnificent and towering; hundreds of years old. As we approached, I saw a tree that was pitched at an impossible angle. It appeared to have fallen. As I got closer, I saw that I was mistaken. The tree hadn’t fallen, it was reaching. It was measurably shorter than the other trees and, in order to survive, it had angled itself toward a patch of sunlight in the middle of the road where there wasn’t a canopy of trees. It was growing toward the sky. It wasn’t falling, it was thriving.
My father committed suicide. It was slow, but it was certain and there is no mistaking it was calculated. After nearly a quarter century of diligently taking his AIDS medications, in the spring of 2022 he took himself off of all of them. Thirteen months later, he was dead. I haven’t known how to reconcile the light-bringer he could sometimes be with the solitude and isolation of his death and have spent the last ten months learning to hold the many parts of who he was with compassion and tenderness.
When I look at my young children, I see my father’s magnetism and effervescence in my son and I see his poetry and considered observation in my daughter. I wonder for them—just as I have for myself—whether his darkness is something that also might be waiting in the corners of their heart or psyche. I may never know, but I can say that if ever they are washed away in that particular flood, I will swim as far as I have to to carry them back to the safety of the riverbank because while I cannot count the ways I love them, I can feel it.
I will do my best to seek the open space which receives enough room to thrive and I will make every effort to teach them how to find it too.
I will remind myself to meet challenge with curiosity and that every painful feeling is a roadmap to love.
I will forgive him for leaving, just as I will forgive myself for not knowing to stop him from going.
I will know his darkness in my bones and also remember that while it is my birthright, and that of my children, it doesn’t have to be our future.
The trees that survive always bend toward the light.
Beautiful!
Just beautiful. I feel so seen with the description of this tree! Beautiful words and thank you.