Death is the Thing with Feathers
At the age of 22, I watched my father die while giving him CPR in the middle of the woods. This is a story of my journey guided by hope.
On July 21st, 2020, I was hiking in the woods of New Hampshire with my dad and my younger brother. It was a hike meant to give us a break from our seemingly endless lock-down routines glued to our laptops, and allow us to spend some time in nature. Close to the end of the hike, I heard a thud and watched my father, a healthy man, collapse in front of my eyes. The next forty minutes were straight out of a movie scene, with me and my brother performing CPR. The scene ended with me, my brother, and my mom sitting on a picnic bench crying as they loaded my dad’s body into the hearse.
I’ve realized that my story might seem terrifying. It may even make you wonder, “how did you do any of that?”. The goal of this essay is not to terrify you, if anything, the goal of this essay is the opposite. In this past year, I’ve written a lot about death, grief, and sadness. This essay is definitely centered around death, but it’s more about the concept of hope and how it has guided me through these difficult times. I wrote my raw thoughts right after my dad passed away, and I eventually wrote about hope as well. Today, I want to combine these two narratives to really illustrate what death means to me.
Death sucks. It can make you feel very alone, it can make your body hurt, and it can make your spirit feel lost. Death is also the one thing we all have in common. It unites us and drags us back to the ground in one way or another.
My dad’s death literally brought me to the ground, to the warm July New England Earth. At that moment, I was scared. It was the most scared I’d been in my entire life. At that moment it felt like my stomach was plummeting to the ground and that it would never go back up again. It’s interesting how now when I look back, I don’t remember it that way. Our brains have a way of protecting those memories to keep us safe. Now, I look back on that moment in a magical light. I’m not very religious but if I close my eyes, I can see a golden orb floating out of my dad’s body and spreading itself into the sunny sky. That memory, however crazy it may sound, sometimes brings me peace.
As I’m reading my own words back, I want to acknowledge that I didn’t always think this way about my dad’s death. I spent months being afraid of that memory. Anytime I had a second for my thoughts to wander, they would wander directly into that traumatic memory. It took months of therapy, writing exercises, regular exercise, talking to friends, and so much more to come to the place where I am today. Here’s where the concept of hope kicks in.
Hope, I’ve realized, is a very powerful word. Hope is a word used by poets, writers, politicians, athletes, and so many more, in so many different ways. Too much hope can result in disappointment, too little hope can result in pessimism. Just the right amount of hope, in my opinion, can be pretty life-changing. I’ve realized that I have a decent amount of hope inside of me, and I credit a lot of it to my dad. He was a very hopeful man and believed in a lot. Hope has the ability to keep me going. When I talk about hope like this, it feels like it is another entity that is constantly pestering me to not give up, but what I’ve realized is that hope is an internal process that is defined by my own personal ideas, inspirations, and beliefs.
“Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all.” — Emily Dickinson
I titled this piece after Emily Dickinson’s wonderful poem, “Hope is the Thing with Feathers”, because, to me, the concepts of hope and death are closely intertwined and related. My dad’s death has perched in my soul. The memory of his death and the grief I carry continues to sing a pretty, hopeful tune without any words. And it truly never stops at all.
Baba, I miss you. Love, Rucha
