Dismantling the Altar
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For those who don’t know, I’ve been in Port Washington living with my fiancée Gabby, who has helped hold me up through the last year since my papa’s passing. Alongside my mom, my dad, Vic and my sister Abby!
I’ve always been back home to Queens over the months but this past weekend, I made some changes .
I finally dismantled the original altar in honor of my dad because I thought it was time. I had come upstairs for so many months and that altar with his remaining belongings had just sat there and I could feel it’s sadness. It was time to spring forward . Adapting my room in the new year , I pray it brings better change and better mental health for myself and for those who have grieved with me over the year.
I saw this quote by NT Wright about Lenten season for 2024,
“Lent is a time for discipline, for confession, for honesty, not because God is mean or fault-finding or finger-pointing but because He wants us to know the joy of being cleaned out, ready for all the good things He now has in store.”
This is now becoming the following spring and I want this spring to be less about grief and more about moving along, as my dad had told me to do time and time again while he was in the hospital. We will commemorate him at the first Easter without him; we will celebrate him at every Yankee or Met game; we will continue traditions that he laid the foundation for, but to put his spirit in a corner of my room feels unfair to him and to the grieving process. I also hope it brings lighters days for my mom and Vic in that cozy and warm environment we all call home.
His personality was never one to stay put, he always wanted to go places and be part of the action. I’ll scatter his ashes one final time in April to commemorate one year, but the start of the process for me to not stay put in the sadness of his loss was to dismantle the altar where his ashes originally rested . His spirit flies all over the place no matter where I or our family goes, and dismantling the altar just makes this year a little more freeing for me personally .
If you have kept an altar for a loved one that has passed, cherish that altar, but just know it’s ok to have a time and a place to move on from that altar as it had served its purpose for your grief .
OneLegUpAlex 