A Beginners Guide To Necromancy: a reflection on grief and mourning

In another lifetime, when I would hear people say they saw their late parents in a dragonfly or a flower or in the soul of their precocious puppy, I would touch their arm, tilt my head, and lie to them through my smug smile.

“That makes so much sense,” I would say. “Of course they’re watching over you.” And then I would drive home, mildly concerned and fairly confident my friend, aunt or colleague was slowly but certainly losing their fragile grip on reality. Perhaps, if I’m being honest, I would even pity them. For, I was still a naive resident of an alternate reality, one where I was unacquainted with the daily drudgery of profound loss.

But now, I find myself naked and alone, blinking my eyes open to this desolate and uncertain landscape we call mourning, and I realize I can be completely undone by a familiar song lyric. Can almost hear the tenor of my father’s voice in Careless Whisper. My Apple Music library is teaming with disco, falsettos of a bygone era. I hang onto these words sung to me long ago in a different time and space, because they are all I have left.

My father died August 11th, 2022. Today marks exactly one year since a moment of carelessness stole the cornerstone of my life. The man who danced me to sleep to disco lullabies. The man who taught me to be a proud breadwinner, a clever negotiator, a dance floor charmer, a champagne connoisseur, and an ice cream lover. He was my karaoke partner, my running mate, my first boss, my last roommate.

A man who abandoned all hopes of teaching me to read a Thomas Guide, yet always pointed me in the right direction when I was lost. A man with expensive taste, he saw diamonds where others saw pieces of coal. Simultaneously touting the principles of rugged American individualism, yet the first to lend a hand to those in need.

He challenged me to be my best, lectured me when I disappointed him, encouraged me when I inevitably failed. We rarely agreed, yet we always heard each other, even if it was as a stubborn duet, each of us speaking over the other. There was no argument we could not overcome, no hurt we couldn’t look past. We loved, we argued, we laughed, we cried, we forgave, and in the end, we were reborn. One generation and the next like sand against stone, polishing each other's rough edges until we were smooth enough to stand shoulder to shoulder.

How could the man who taught me the art of arriving late have disappeared from this world so irrevocably early?

My dad died the day after the legendary singer Olivia Newton-John, and her Xanadu Album was the last played in his library. For those unfamiliar, Xanadu is a space travel disco opera on roller skates, charting the course of two star crossed lovers. Which somehow makes perfect sense when you buckle in for the 90 minute ethereal journey. And while that last sentence may have sounded like a stretch, let me take you one step farther: When I listen to the hit single Magic, I kind of believe my father is speaking to me through these celestial lyrics. When Olive Newton-John says, “I’ll come anytime you call, and I’ll be guiding you.” Somehow, I believe it. That he will bring my dreams alive just for me.

I need these boots...

So by all means, go on ahead. Feel your mother’s spirit in a teacup. Share a familiar glance with a cheeky garden gnome. See a loved one’s smile reaching out to you through the father character of a sitcom. Run it back. Watch it on repeat. I believe you. I see dead people too. All the time.

In Aladdin, the genie recites Rule number 3: “I can’t bring people back from the dead. It’s not a pretty picture,” he says, morphing into a green, oozing zombie. “I don’t like doing it.”

And yet, isn't that what grief is?

Our body fighting, scratching their way into the grave vying tragically to bring someone back. Whether it be through listening to an old voicemail, watching a home video, looking through photos, inserting their name into every conversation, seeing their face on an old uncle riding a bike next to you on your morning run. Each apparition haunts and excites you. Feeling pain is better than feeling nothing, after all. So fine. I grant grief permission to run through my veins. Lay scales over my eyes, so all I see is his face. All I hear is his laugh. All I smell is his cologne, always pleasant, albeit a little too strong.

Today, I would clamor to be the one to shave his back hair. Would sit transfixed with bated breath, begging for a lecture. Please, dad, tell me again, how I should have become a doctor. Please, tell me more about the magic water which can cure cancer. I want to hear it all. In fact, I will wait on hold while you answer a business call. Take your time. I’m here. Waiting. Dying to hear your voice again. Please, taste the birthday cake I baked for you and tell me how Susie’s Cakes is just a little bit better.

For the last month I have been considering how I would spend this day honoring the hole in my heart. Nothing seems large enough, grand enough to fill this extraordinary tear in the fabric of my life.

Instead, I prefer to think about what I would do if he was here:

We would run on the beach from Newport Pier to the Wedge and back, each of our footsteps trailing behind us. We would listen to music, snap selfies at the halfway mark, watch the dolphins splashing in the waves.

Afterwards, we would order an acai bowl and sit on the concrete wall that separates the parking lot from the sand. I would watch our brown legs dangling side by side like a pendulum, his wide brim lifeguard hat bobbing as I make you laugh that deep wheezy chuckle like your mother. You’ll offer me some of your Monkey Bowl, chocolate, peanut butter, and banana ice cream thinly veiled as a healthy breakfast. You’ll ask me to bring the kids by one day this week, and I’ll lie and say I will, knowing perfectly well busy schedules will distract us both, our best intentions fading on the car ride home back to our separate lives.

Part of grieving is mourning a version of yourself who no longer exists. Death comes for the living too. In its own cruel way. Etching away at the optimistic pieces of yourself. I wish I had known. There is a cruelty in not being able to say goodbye. She left the moment I heard the words from a stranger’s mouth, “He just didn’t make it.” A chaotic kaleidoscope of white halls, sad, sterile eyes, the sound of my screams reverberating for no one to hear. Me sliding down the wall of a dark and empty hospital lobby sitting on the stone floor, talking, amid gasps to my therapist on the phone. The sound of her voice encouraging me to breathe, so I don't hyperventilate and pass out. What good would that do? Those of us left behind have to be practical, after all.

So this Beginner’s Guide to Necromancy is two fold: Losing my father has been like the sun going down on me (A lyric I have sung so many times before understanding the gravity of its meaning). And searching for a new version of myself who can conjure the will to keep lifting the sun on my back each morning forcing it to rise without him.

Recently, I read in Mariam Greenspan’s book Healing through Dark Emotions that the alchemy of grief “moves us from sorrow from what we have lost to gratitude for what remains…That fear of life’s fragility is transformed to the joy of living fully.” The beauty of the cycle is the hope that rebirth is promised on the other side of grief.

Perhaps the Genie is right. It’s not a pretty picture, necromancy. But when it’s all you have left, you can’t tear your eyes away. In fact, you may just decide to duck tape those baby browns open, promising yourself- or whomever this unfamiliar phoenix is brushing off their ashes in the reflection of my bathroom mirror- you won’t take a single moment for granted.

He actually really loved this cake!