Leading With Your Heart While Holding Grief and Gratitude in Each Hand

My father’s birthday is today. So today I reflect upon the father who I have lost while at the same time I reflect upon all of the gifts that I have been given.

My father was a wonderful dancer. Other than a year of tap dance lessons in sixth grade, I never learned to dance, not a waltz, not a foxtrot, not a jitterbug. I used to love to watch my parents dance. They would move so effortlessly across the dance floor, as easy as breathing to them. At the occasional wedding or dinner-dance that I would attend with my parents, I would get the opportunity to dance with my dad. He knew I didn’t know any of the steps so I remember him saying to me with a smile, “Don’t worry honey, I’ll make you look good.” And he did.

You see the thing is, you could really say that about anything that I’ve ever done. Anything that I’ve accomplished in life traces its way back to him. I’m not just talking about shared DNA. Although maybe there is such a thing as a dancing-gene because I enjoy movement. And my son, well, I think he inherited his dance skills from my dad because he’s a natural. But beyond DNA, it’s in all of the things I have learned from him in life. It’s in the little words of wisdom he would share. It’s in the examples he would set at home. And it’s in the way my dad lived his life. So whenever I “look good” it IS because he made me look good.

Throughout my life, I could hear his voice in my head. Those words shaped much of who I am and weighed in on many decisions. My dad had his sayings. You could say his own version of sutras. Here are just a few and what they meant to me.

“If you want something, pursue it.” … follow your dreams

“Nothing’s automatic in this world.” … work hard for what you want

“I had to s#@t for myself.” … now I think this one’s self-explanatory, but let’s just say, be independent (lol)

“Save your money.” or “That (money) could pay for Venetian blinds.” … spend and save wisely (Why Venetian blinds would always be picked as an example, I simply can’t explain.)

“I don’t play games.” … say what you mean and mean what you say

“One look and I was hooked” (about my mom) … love and devotion

Love and devotion, isn’t that at the heart of the meaning of life? Leading with your heart. It’s what I think of first when I think of my father, even before baseball (and that’s saying something). He exemplified love and devotion, love and devotion shown to my mother during the days when he was first courting her, through his time in the service when they were engaged, through marriage and then extended to the family he would create with her, all the way up until the end of their lives together. That last year of his life, after my mom fell and broke her hip, he was that source of mental, emotional and physical support for her. He was her caregiver during that final year of his life when her entire world consisted of my parents’ living room, those days where he slept on the sofa situated across from her hospital bed so that they would be together, so he could be there for her if she needed his help, or just to talk in the night, which she often did. You could say I got a little glimpse of that when I started sleeping on the couch that was once occupied by my dad. After my dad passed, sometimes my mom would get confused at night and call out to him. When I would respond, she’d say “Oh, it’s you Christine. I thought it was your father sleeping there.” All the way up until his final weeks of life his thoughts were about my mom and his family. I would ask a nurse to place a call to me from his room when they had a moment. One phone call a day was allowed. I would call as the family representative and pass on the information to my brothers. Twice I heard “Wasn’t there already a call made by the family today? You’re only allowed one call per family a day.” I assured her we were complying. Same nurse both times, I recognized the voice. In the early days my dad would almost speak a monologue of everything that was weighing on his mind. “"I’ll be at Harleigh Cemetery. Call the undertaker, they’re expensive. My house has turned into a hospital. I can’t believe it. Get me my blanket from downstairs, I need to keep warm. I need to go to the store to buy pie … blueberry pie … cherry pie … lemon pie. How’s mother? It’s very important for mother and I to be together …” His thoughts were'n’t always cohesive, and sometimes he was too weak to speak and I would just hear the oxygen that was being administered. Then in one of those calls during his final days he told me “no one lives forever” … I already knew that he was asking the nurses to let him die. They would ask him why and he said … “it’s because I’ve lived a good life.” And he did. My parents had a wonderful life together, sixty-six years of marriage, and that is truly something to celebrate. He thought he would be the last to go, my mom was about four years older. So his biggest concern at the end was that my mom was ok. Since he wasn’t allowed visitors it was the one thing that I could do for him, to let him know she was fine and being taken care of, that, and to tell him that I loved him.

He was a source of support for my mom, and he was a source of support for me. He was always there for me. And he showed his support, even when I didn’t expect it. When I decided to follow a new career path, one that wasn’t exactly conventional, he turned out to be my biggest supporter and cheerleader. He was so proud of my newly chosen path in yoga therapy and mindfulness and how I was continuing my education in the field. Maybe he realized that I had listened to him when he said “If you want something, pursue it.” He said to me once, about a year or two ago, “You know, no one told you what to do, you did it all on your own. You saw something you wanted to do and you did it. And you keep on growing, and furthering your education. That’s you. You did that. Not many people can say that.” … I’ll never forget that. That’ll be just one of the many precious memories that I have of my dad.

There are so many memories, and little things that trigger memories, memories for which I am grateful. So many things I enjoy trace their roots to him, my travel bug, my love of jazz, art, museums, nature, history, food (obviously) and hats (I recently snagged the one hat of my dad’s that fit my head, a black velour fedora). He taught me how to navigate my way through life and enjoy it at the same time. He showed me how to see the beauty of each moment. So many memories I have of him, memories that bring smiles, laughter, tears, and sometimes all of these at once. That’s grief. That’s what happens when we miss someone deeply. Gratitude and grief go hand in hand with love and loss.

When we lose a loved one, we are often asked how we are doing. We smile. We nod. We say, “… we’re fine, thank you for asking …” and we do our best to actually mean it. We know we need to move on. We know we need to go on. We know we need to live our life fully to honor that person’s memory. So here I say, “I miss my dad. I miss him in a way that I could not have possibly imagined before, but, I’m ok.” Grief, a word that we understand at an intellectual level, but don’t fully understand until we actually experience it for ourselves, much like having children. Everyone says that you won’t understand what it means to be a parent until you have a child. Before that time comes, we nod our head in agreement. After that time comes, the revelation of that statement becomes known and becomes “Ohhh, NOW I get it. I think the same can be said about grief, or any extremely intense emotion that evokes deep feelings. So now I would like to say to all family and friends who have lost a loved one. “I am truly sorry for your great loss. Words don’t replace what you have lost. Memories are precious. Love remains. My thoughts and prayers are with you.” It doesn’t matter how long ago your loss was, because the hard truth of the matter is that the loss never leaves us. As time goes on, eventually, it may not always feel like loss is our constant companion as it did in the earlier days of grieving. But the loss is still there, sometimes silent, sometimes not. And when it does appear, sometimes there is sadness. But sometimes there are smiles and sometimes there is laughter. And sometimes we feel all of it at once. The stages of grief are not necessarily linear. But, eventually, we reach acceptance. We reach acceptance but in no way does that mitigate the loss that we feel, because that is to deny the existence of the love that we feel for that person, and that love never goes away, nor should it. And, it is for the love that we feel, that we feel grateful. Sorrow is not bound by time, so love isn’t either.

So there you have it. We hold grief in one hand. We hold gratitude in the other. We experience one. We experience the other. And sometimes we experience both at the same time. But we move on with our lives. We live our lives fully. We do the best we can the best we know how. We let our hearts lead the way, and we dance another dance.

Peace be with you,

Christine Lisa

Since it’s October, I’ll end with one photo of my dad (last photo, he’s on the far right) and two photos of Mr. October. It was actually, August 11, 1980, the day before my birthday that these top two photos were taken. On this day, Reggie Jackson hit his 400th career home run. My dad was in the stands sitting next to Reggie’s dad. Martinez Jackson had a tailor shop in Philly. He was introduced to him by a work-colleague of my dad’s. Reggie’s dad learned from my dad that his son (my brother) was in the Yankee farm system playing A-ball. And soon after that, Martinez Jackson, my dad, and my dad’s friend Tony started going to Yankee games together. In late summer of 1980, Reggie was quickly approaching home run #400. So they started going to every Yankee game played at Yankee Stadium and away games at Baltimore, hoping of course that the magic number would be hit in his father’s presence and ultimately that it would happen in New York. And it did. On August 12th, 1980 I woke up to a replay of that event on The Today Show. Reggie Jackson rounding the bases, crossing home plate and walking towards his father for the much anticipated celebratory hug … and right there standing next to Mr. Martinez Jackson, the father of Mr. October, was my dad, Rich Carlucci, with an ear-to-ear grin and patting Reggie Jackson on the back. My dad had a deep love for the game of baseball. He was a regular fixture at Audubon baseball games long after the days my brothers stopped playing. My mom would know that during baseball season, her husband would eat his dinner quickly and head out to a game, wherever there happened to be a game playing. And as for family vacations, every vacation revolved around where my brother was playing ball, three years of Big Ten baseball, ten years in the minor leagues beginning with A-ball, then AA, and then the last six years AAA. And then after my brother retired from professional baseball, he continued to watch my brother play in baseball leagues in NJ, and eventually got to watch his son and grandson playing on the same team. And maybe, if that day comes, where his son, grandson and great-grandson are playing on the same team, he’ll be watching from baseball heaven. And he’ll be calling out to my mom, “honey, the game’s on now.”