A Decade Dadless

Happy New Year & Happy Last Post of 2020.

December

I was not excited to turn 23 on the 2nd, as I described in my last blog post. But I'm thankful for Cherice for being on the phone with me at 2:14am as I turned exactly 23 and the time I spent with Tone and Kema just chatting and chilling!
On the 2nd, there was also a wonderful advent service through Yale. Apparently this celebration is the littest in person, but I'm thankful for the company I had while watching it on YouTube live with Tone. :)
On the 4th, Clique surprised me with a nice Birthday Zoom! It was so good to catch up and play Among Us.
Throughout the week of the 6th, the only people I saw were delivery drivers because I ordered takeout too frequently... the isolation was NOT great for my mental health, but it was good for the progress I made in my finals! I studied well for History of Early Christianity, got my Exegesis done for Old Testament Interpretation, and wrote a Funeral Sermon for Pastoral Perspectives on Death & Dying.
I had a conversation with my faculty advisor, modern theologian, Willie Jennings on the 16th. It was an interview for a vocationally-focused paper that I wrote for my class Ministry & the Disinherited. I'm thankful for this conversation because it helped frame my mindset for future work. I'm excited to incorporate what I've gleaned from it and this class in my future practice.
I hung out with Cherice and her fam for some holiday fun while my car was getting looked at... again... I'm thankful to be included in her family so readily and so warmly.
This past week I've been home for the holidays!

Christmas was a nice time to spend with family
I came out at church as part of a reflection I shared on my collegiate journey for the first ever Young Adult Sunday. It can be watched here along with reflections and music from 4 other young adults: Jane, Abby, Claire, and Grier. My reflection can be read here.
On the 29th, I had Genesis & Valentino sleep over and it was SUCH a pleasant time to be in space with them. I love them so much and cherish every moment I get to spend with them.
On the 30th, I got to have a socially-distanced dinner and chat with Frouple (Rachel, Liz B., & Mikey.) It was so nice to catch up with them.
Last night I rang in the New Year with Liz J. & Evan and it was a great time per usual with them. (And I made some GREAT Coquito, recipe à la Shayna, if I do say so myself!) ❤

A Decade Dadless

Jamal Davis Neal, Sr. c. 2010 & Jamal Davis Neal, Jr. c. 2020

The last time I saw my father was on December 25th, 2010.

He died on December 29th, 2010.

A whole decade has passed.

I was 13 then.

I am 23 now.

I am a whole decade older.

I am now the age that my mom was when I was conceived.

I am a year younger than my dad was then and two years older than he was when my brother Hassiem was born.

My life looks so drastically different than theirs:

I still haven't had a long term relationship.

The possibility of a child is a LONG ways away.

I am in graduate school.

We all have experienced loss in our lives. We all have experienced death. We all have experienced grief. Complicated, unmitigated, necessary, beautiful, terrifying, upsetting grief.

Did they think, 23 years ago, that this is what my life would look like?

They knew the village they had, the people that would be taking care of me.

Did he think, 23 years later, I wouldn't have much of a relationship with any of his relatives?

Over these past 10 years, the definition of family for me has been broken, reformed, and broken again.

Family was blood.

Family was more than blood.

Family means unconditional love.

Family can't be forced. Family becomes.

Did my parents think, 23 years later, that their son could feel so broken? And healed? And rebroken? And reformed? And transformed? How do you protect someone from all of that? How do you ensure a "full" life experience?

I know parenthood is complicated. I know it's hard. I know they weren't prepared to love me how I needed, but I also know that they tried their best.

Did they think I would be so dedicated to constant growth? Did they know I'd be so brutally honest? Did they think I would be so radically different from them, yet somehow, still, similar in important ways?

How much did they plan together? Did they plan to stay together? What things did my dad want me to learn from him? What did he think of his role in my life? Who would I be if he didn't die?

My life has and is constantly shaped by my father's death.

It has greatly shaped who I am and who I'm becoming.

It will continue to do so.

I took Pastoral Perspectives on Death & Dying on purpose this year as a means to directly confront my grief, interrogate it, and to learn different perspectives in general. It has helped me process in a different way than I have traditionally and I'm appreciative of what I was able to unpack with my classmates.

One of the main takeaways I took from that class was that grief is hella complicated and the meaning that we make out of death is up to the individuals left after the death--not anyone else. Every emotion is valid as long as we learn to function in life afterward.

My classmate Crichelle introduced this concept of grief to me:

Over the years I've made meaning, and I've remade meaning about my dad's death. The first gleaning I understood at 13 became obsolete by the time I was 15. Those gleanings have reshaped, reformed, and become something different each passing day. The meaning I derive is never constant, save for the fact that it influences everything I do. It's been up to me to make sure that it influences me positively.

Over the years, this pain button has been hit. There are specific triggers that hit it more fervently, but over time the ball has gotten smaller. I am able to cope much more than I did when I was a teenager.

Many people in my life don't understand these aspects of loss because they haven't experienced a loss like this. This isn't to say I don't know people who've had a complicated relationship with the fathers, or no relationship with their fathers. I just mean that having a dead father means existing in a different, inexplicable sort of space.

This is perfectly captured in a Season 3 episode of Grey's Anatomy. When George's dad dies, Cristina attempts to connect with him: "There's a club. The Dead Dads Club. And you can't be in it until you're in it. You can try to understand, you can sympathize. But until you feel that loss..."

George: "I... I don't know how to exist in a world where my dad doesn't,"

Cristina: "Yeah, that never really changes."

The button is still there, able to be pressed at any given moment. There are ways to live beyond the grief, but my life will forever be marked by a Time Before and a Time After my dad's death. The Time After has felt lonely and small and frustrating. There's another non-physical person, besides God, whose feelings about me are important to me.

I want to live up to my name and I want to be my own person.

I want to make him proud and I want to live a life in which I'm able to flourish in peace.

I want to live my life for him and I want to be the best person I know to be.

I want to be the best parts of my parents and I want to be better.

At times I am the worst parts of my parents and I want to continue to learn and grow.

I have developed clearer and clearer understandings of the nature of God as I've gotten older. I have become more at peace in that understanding and, through Divinity School, my understanding is being challenged, yet reinforced.

At my dad's funeral in early January 2010, I sang the song "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen. I sang it because I knew it dealt with heartbreak and questioning of the nature of God. It encapsulated my feelings as a sad and broken 13 year old.

It hurts for me to hear it because it is a reopening of my woundedness. It makes the reality of loss fresh. It is a reflection of my darkest, deepest, saddest, and most difficult conversation with God.

It describes heartache and suffering, inevitable aspects of the human experience, yet an unwavering praising of God. (That's what "Hallelujah" means! Praise God!)

When I gave my reflection to my church on December 27th, I thought it would be important to sing it again, for the first time in 5 years. I thought it would be important for that conversation to be had, for those words to spill out of mouth. I thought it would be important to remember my dad in my testimony. He is always apart of my testimony.

I offer it here as a closing to "A Decade Dadless".