We buried my father on the hill at Silver Lake Cemetery.

My mother turned to me as the committal concluded and said, “It’s my birthday.”

In all the chaos of those days, we had forgotten. Maybe she had forgotten too. I like to think so. It helps.

This was grief’s first contact with me.

Here is what I learned. Grief reveals chaos. Grief has no standard form or process. It has no absolute expression. It is inevitable. It is universal. It is inescapable, and it does not come with a verifiable end date.

For me, grief’s expression was not sorrow. I cried once during that whole time. That was because I realized my children would never get to know my father, and it was because I knew I would not… could not represent him in his full personhood to them. I had only just started knowing him as a multi-faceted being myself. My father’s death made me realize I had lost an opportunity, one that would never come again.

And so it was that the doorway to chaos first led me into a confrontation with my guilt.