I’ve been looking for words, for feelings that shouldn’t get spoken. It’s something that’s true, I’m starting to learn that silences shouldn’t be broken; just listened to. I get this moment with you forever now. It all hits me at once forever now. (Forever Now from This is Us)

Today marks seven years since I lost my father to suicide. As I sit here in the quiet, crying and reflecting, what I feel most is the missing. I miss my dad and it makes me sad to think that the space between the notes, the time he was here, and the time he’s been gone, will only grow longer. There will be no more words written in the story of us, no new melodies or lyrics to be sung. There is only what was and what will never be.

But there has been a shift, a palpable change in this day. I am not focused on how my father died. I am not caught in an endless loop of trauma and unanswerable questions. I have done the grueling work of processing traumatic loss. I have waded into the waters of despair, been brought to my knees in pain, I have howled and wailed in anger, and I have picked up the pieces bit by bit to reach this place of healing.

At our Passover seder this year, we introduced a new tradition. We had a Passover Box of Questions that we had never used before. This year, we each picked a question that resonated for us, and at different points in our seder, we shared that question along with our answer, and we opened it up to reflections from anyone who might like to say something. The question that I chose was, What is one of the most important things you’ve done for someone else, and what is one of the most important things someone else has done for you?

It took me seven years to be able to say the words that came out of my mouth that evening. They came organically, with no forethought or planning. They came from a place that had suffered in silence, fraught with guilt and a misguided notion of responsibility for my father’s death. But on that night, I gave them breath and freed myself in the process.

My answer, one of the most important things I’ve ever done for someone else was to listen. In those last months of my father’s life, I listened. I allowed him to feel seen and understood, a sentiment my mother often shares with me. Only this time I said it without the familiar caveat, but it wasn’t enough to save him. I didn’t diminish the fact that when he hung up the phone with me, for a brief time he felt better. I didn’t focus on what I didn’t see or what was kept out of my sight. I saw him, in all of his brokenness, and I reflected back to him acceptance, unconditional love, and empathy. Who knows if he held on for just one more day because of that? Who knows if hope found a little crack, a fissure, a brief way inside of the darkness that had taken hold of him because of our talks? I choose to believe that it did. Seven years later, I feel ready to lay the caveats down by the wayside and continue my journey without them.

My father was a complex human being and our relationship had moments of beauty and pain, love and loss, hurt and healing. I wish that I could’ve come to know him more, to continue those deep talks we had in the last months of his life. It’s easy to simply say that our parents are shaped by the way they were raised and the lives they led before we came into being. But at his most vulnerable, my father was only beginning to reveal his story to me. I would’ve liked to have more of those talks with my father, to learn from him and about him. I am sad that I won’t get that chance, not just because it would have brought us even closer, but because there is a salve that such understanding brings to old wounds, there is a grace that comes with that kind of cognizance, meeting our parents as people and gaining a deeper insight into their autobiography. It may not undo the pain we carry, but if we are lucky, it might allow for some mending. I felt that just as I was reaching that place with my own father, the story came to an abrupt and cruel ending. The pages are blank, and words are frozen in time.

My therapist gave me an image today that resonated so deeply. My father and I are walking on a trail, and he is slowly falling behind. With each year that passes, I move further ahead, and the distance between us grows. The sound of his voice, the feel of his hugs, are fading from view and I worry that I will lose them. But I have to journey onward and he can only be found in the looking back now. That is not about the way that his life ended. That is what it means to grieve.

Music is the space between the notes. Claude Debussy