Transformative grief

Mar 14, 2025

Word in Progress - Karen-Michaela Tan
Ash Wednesday marked the two-week passing of my father. Last September, at 82, he was diagnosed with severe stenosis of the heart. A chest infection triggered a heart episode on the third day of Chinese New Year, and though he was convalescing well enough, he had a respiratory crisis and after two days in ICU, his cardiologist asked to see my brother and I. Nothing ever prepares you for the words, “I believe you know that your father is dying. There is nothing more we can do for him except to keep him comfortable.”

Two former colleagues of my father, both middle-aged Muslim men, came by to the nursing home where dad had chosen to die. They had not, at the time, been told of his passing, and had come to try to visit. When I told them that he had passed, the men asked if they could still come to see dad. Azlan, who had worked many years with my father, embraced and kissed his former manager, in a way I could only describe as filial.

Dad’s wake saw an unprecedented number of well-wishers – quite extraordinary for such a low-key ordinary man. It showed me that the world needs these kind of people: self-effacing souls who never bother to ponder the deep questions like what one’s purpose of life is, but who just get on with the business of living, and in that living, touch lives.

Because I posted about him and our relationship extensively on my Facebook page, even friends who did not directly benefit from his cooking and food gifts came to bid farewell to dad. One friend said, “Your dad made up 300 per cent for all the wretched, abusive, irresponsible, toxic fathers out there.” And it was true. My friends became his, and there was a bunch of them who visited him more than they did me.

Family from Singapore, Perth and Sydney flew in to speed my father on his last journey, and everyone commended my brother Christopher and I on the fantastic job we did. The cleaning of the family home which I began while he was in hospital, in the hopes that he would come home, if only to live on the lower floor, became my prime focus. In two weeks, working full eight hour days and with the help of Chris, I threw myself in my work as a way of distancing from the world which had suddenly become less bright and welcoming without the man who had shaped me.

When Ash Wednesday approached, I pondered if I wanted to go to Mass, seeing that it was technically not a day of obligation. Because a BEC friend said she would drive me, I decided to attend, only to be faced with a crush of people at the 6.30am Mass which rivalled even the Christmas horde. Worse still was seeing the sympathy on the faces of the many people I knew in that parish, many who had come to pay respects and sit with me at the wake.

After Mass, fasting be darned, I ate toast with the last bit of the bottle of nut butter my father had not finished before he died. For 14 days I had been in self-imposed exile, in the dungeon of my unexpressed grief, with no appetite, and when eating, taking no pleasure in the vittles. As I ate the hot, crisp bread with extravagant lashing of butter, I drew parallels to this meal, and that of the Eucharist.

The institution of the Eucharist gave Jesus’ followers a reason to gather, and in that gathering, remember Him. And Jesus’ plan was not just that a bunch of fishermen sit together and tell stories of their glory days when they were part of the miracle of multiplication and the power of exorcism. The Eucharist is more than just a memorial. By partaking in this sacred meal, the Twelve and we who have come after them, are also agreeing to be part of the continuing mission of our Lord and Master. Our faith is not one of sorrowing lassitude, but of vigour which comes from loss. When we do what we do for Christ, we are not just memorialising Him, but keeping His word and mission alive. As disciples we are now the ones who have to feed the hungry even if we have no powers of miraculous stretching of produce. As mature Catholics we realise our job is not to multiply, but to simply desire to share our portion of bread and fish.

It was in this time of my own breaking of bread that I realised that as long as I lived, my father would live in me. All his wisdom, kindness, caring and generosity have been ingrained in me, and it would be an insult to his memory to pull away from community, friends and Church.

So there and then I called a BEC friend who I know does not cook, and sometimes faces a challenge on days of abstinence because takeaway food tends to have elements of meat in it. I volunteered a helping of the fish chowder my husband made for lunch, and also made a batch of overnight oats for that person so they would not go hungry the first week of Lent.

In this aspect of Martha-ness, this ‘doing-ness’ I was able to celebrate my father and his love of feeding all and sundry. Through this I was also able to draw closer to the cross, to embrace it for the sorrow it caused, but to also use it to help pull myself up so I could stand again, instead of being a crumpled heap of grief.

It is for moments of enlightenment like this that I am profoundly glad of my faith, and its ability to help me to understand that in death there is life, and that grief comes with its own consolation. For when we line up our sorrow against the cross, we will find that Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross still towers above our own personal loss. And in the shadow of the cross, there is peace and acceptance.

(Karen-Michaela Tan is a poet, writer and editor who seeks out God’s presence in the human condition and looks for ways to put the Word of God into real action.)

The views expressed are entirely the writer’s own.