Acceptance

I've been working on a chapter of 7 Days over the past couple of weeks, possibly titled: Acceptance. What began as an exploration into the acceptance of my father's death, both before and after it became reality, has turned into so much more. I'm reflecting on the level of acceptance we'd each held for each other, and the thresholds we each had for such. I could accept that my father was a Christian man and lived his life as such, but I drew the line at accepting any and all words into my ears upon hearing the words "church," "faith," "God," or the likes. And if I stopped listening when he talked, was that really me accepting him for who he was? 

We had a conversation just before he died about religion and the ways in which it's affected our relationship, and I came to realize that we'd never have had that conversation if not for his imminent death shadowing his every move. This conversation catapulted us into feverish acceptance, given the "knowledge" that he'd be gone soon(er, rather than later). There were questions like: "Why don't you ever ask about _______ when you know she's my girlfriend?" and "What do you believe about God, Dian??"; then statements like: "She's not my friend; she's my girlfriend--you can acknowledge that even if you don't like it."; and "I don't necessarily believe that you'll go to Hell anymore...". 

All this (and more, which I'll leave for the book for now) from the knowledge of his death, looming around the corner, not knowing which corner but being able to smell it if we put our nose to the ground like a hound, in the air like a retriever. And we were not wrong, unfortunately so. I wanted to believe we were wrong about how close his death actually was, but there's a knowing that comes in the form of a gut feeling, a twisted knot deep in the belly that tightens and sickens the days away, beckoning questions unasked and statements unstated to be asked and stated and put out in the open air so they can live and breathe and not die with the man sitting in the sunken couch with cushions that ought to have been replaced years ago, just as these things ought to have been aired. 

And what comes at the end, but acceptance? Of the man sitting in front of me. Of the woman standing before him. Of the death waiting around the bend. Of the cancer buried deep in the man. Of the lesbian buried deep in the woman. Of the love for each and all of these things, these people. Of the idea that one can believe what one believes and that belief is not tarnished or broken or made irrelevant by another's belief in the opposite. In the end, there was acceptance of all that we were, all that we tried to be and all that was left over. In the end there was acceptance of a father and a daughter and a death that could not tear the two apart.