Do Not Go Gentle

It will be 9 years this summer since my father died.  Some days the memories are happy and funny, but then some days it’s hard to get the ache of sorrow and grief out of my chest. 

It’s still hard to talk about him, especially to those who’ve never met him.  Whether the memories are happy or sad, tears well up and I breathe a little heavier.  How do you describe the most wonderful, loving person you’ve ever known?  How do you describe the sudden loss and the years of grief without your best friend?  He’s the man who made me, shaped me, from where I get my stubborness, my love of learning, my compassion for others?   We all search for understanding, but I’m not sure anyone can ever truly know me without having known my father.

I didn’t say much at my father’s funeral.  I chose to read a poem rather than a eulogy, one that I read to him silently while he was unconscious and on life support that last father’s day weekend.  One that pleads for him to not go gently.  And he didn’t, as he still clings to me even though we’re parted by death.

Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night
by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
 
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green
bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light. 

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.