Echoes of Absence: Losing a Part of Myself

Learning who we are without the people in our lives

It’s only since moving to the U.S. that I have gotten to experience Thanksgiving. Taking a moment to consider what I’m thankful for seems like a perfect balance with the Jewish Yom Kippur in which Jews are meant to fast while considering who they’ve done wrong. Instead of no food and dwelling on regrets, here you indulge in a ridiculous meal and reflect on gratitude.

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“You just lost your best friend ever”. This was what a family friend told me moments after I saw my dad’s dead body.

I came to the hospital immediately after getting the news. My dad, a completely healthy 60-year-old, had to be rushed to the hospital. I wasn’t told why, only that I had to come. I later learned that he suffered a cardiac arrest in his sleep and went almost immediately. 

So right there, outside the room where he lay, one of his best friends stood next to me, broken as well, and could only utter the words “You just lost your best friend ever”. It took years for me to grasp the profound understatement in those words.

My dad and I were close. We spoke almost every single day. Every day we would have a brief phone call, checking in. On some days it was 3 minutes, on others, it was 30.

This was normal for my dad. It was his thing, every day. He would speak with each of his four children, his parents, and a rotating roster of his friends. Thinking back, I’m not entirely sure what motivated him to do this so religiously. Perhaps it was a way of reaffirming control, a manifestation of worry, or something else entirely. But it took losing him, and several more years without him, for me to realize what those daily calls meant to me. 

Those daily check-ins weren’t only about checking a box. Speak to dad - check. Looking back, I see those as daily stand-ups with my closest ally. In those calls, I got to share my successes and failures, got to bounce ideas regarding future plans, and always knew I’d get honest feedback, whether I’d like it or not. 

Losing that stability has been chaotic. I’ve spent decades relying on it. Not even realizing to what extent I was dependent on it. 

There’s some strangeness in not just missing my dad, but in missing a part of myself that seems absent now that he's gone.

Today, I’m thankful for everything those calls gave me. In those calls, without realizing it, I got to reaffirm my goals. Simply by having to share stuff with him out loud, it was almost like I was reciting intentions as a mantra, reminding myself what it was I wanted to achieve that day, that week, or that month. His feedback, which many times I disagreed with, allowed me to calibrate and refine my own thinking. When things weren’t going well, his reaction served as a familiar grounding force, perfectly balancing emotion with a healthy dose of stoicism sprinkled on top.

In hindsight, I didn’t realize that my father wasn’t just one of my best friends, but also an integral part of my cognitive process. Losing him has been like losing a part of myself.

It’s been over four years now, and still I occasionally find parts of my life that are unstable due to that loss. As I’m learning how to live without him, I’m constantly learning who I really was, who I am today, and who I want to be.

There are many ways I could go about replacing those standups and attempt to achieve recalibration of some sort. But for now, I’ll settle for acknowledging what was, and being grateful for it. 

Hopefully, this awareness has deepened my understanding of the people in my life, their significance to me, and perhaps the person I might have been without them.