Places have memories that tug at your heart for good or bad. The other evening I was driving by the Dairy Queen Dad would take us to for good report cards and I vividly heard my siblings and I in my head arguing about who saw the DQ sign first, it was a competition for us! I smiled, enjoyed the memory, and drove on feeling a little bit happier than I was before. There are places in Colorado that make me feel closer to my Dad and help heal the hole a bit. I have driven to Clement Park, Coors Field, and taken Morrison Road to Evergreen because those places make me happy. They are where I want to remember Dad because they represent the good and happy times we had as a family.
At the same time, I go to serious lengths to avoid the places associated with his death. I avoid driving by the place he died and if have to get on Hampton I make sure I stare straight ahead but I feel my blood pressure rise and I always have some anxiety driving past. I try my best to avoid going by the mortuary because that was the last place I saw my Dad at the private family viewing. I remember sitting under a tree at the Mortuary sobbing, picking out his cremation box, and then driving with my family to pick up his remains and the clothing (the riding jersey I had bought him in South Africa) he was wearing when he died.
I told myself when I ran from his reception at the University of Denver's Strum College of Law that I would never enter that building again. I don't want to remember what it felt like that day to speak at my Dad's funeral and to see the desolation that filled the eyes of over 700 attendees. I can't find the words to describe how horrific that day was and how claustrophobic and lost I felt. It was the second most difficult day of my life and that place will always represent all we lost in a heartbeat.
I found out this afternoon that we will host our first graduation in the atrium on May 31st-- almost 9 months to the day after Dad's service. This is a day I have been looking forward to for months. I saw it as the end of an immensely challenging and heartbreaking corps year that, despite all obstacles, was still tinged with success and a way to celebrate the wonderful corps members I have had the privilege to manage. It was a night to say, "you did it! you made it through the year! now, you can take a moment and catch your breath!" In City Year graduation is that magical reset button you rarely get in real life and it is a time of joyous relief and pride that I needed desperately.
I will dig deep and I will find the courage to enter the atrium, stand on the stage, and congratulate the work of 50 incredible people. I will smile when we take pictures and I will fake it 'til I make it. But, right now-tonight- I feel like the world has played a cruel joke on me and that I have finally be given all I can handle.
