My mum hands me the St. Christoper pendant my dad has worn since he was 20 years old. He turned 80 eleven days ago. He has been gone for three days now, dying suddenly at the kitchen sink, my mum by his side.
I have faint memories of seeing the pendant when I was little, but most of the time, it was hidden, worn on a long chain underneath his shirt.
I take the necklace, hold it in my hand, and wonder who will this piece of my dad belong to when I am gone?
Who will be the keeper of my family's treasures and stories?
I am the last of my kind, along with my brother and two cousins. All of us are childless due to a range of circumstances. My dad had three siblings. Two are childless, not by choice, and one has two childless children. Can childlessness itself be a legacy?
I feel a layer of guilt-tinged grief reveal itself. Guilt has been a common thread throughout my journey to childlessness, and I thought I had uncovered all the places it was residing. I didn't expect to find guilt in this moment, but here it is. All of the histories, the hard-earned lives lived, end with me, and I feel responsible. Feeling responsible to my ancestors is new to me. I don't know what to do with it.
The old 'what could have been if I had done more' narrative starts to play in my head. The tired script finds its well-worn groove and plays out.
What if I had a different doctor?
What if I had advocated for myself more?
What if we didn't stop trying for those couple of years?
What if we could have afforded fertility treatments?
And on and on.
This script doesn't run very often anymore, but the grief of my dad's death has nudged my childless grief back into the foreground and exposed another layer of what it means to be childless.
Grief is like that; it accumulates, and we learn to expand the container to hold it. With each new loss, this time a parent, the size and depth of my grief increases. At first, my container doesn't have the capacity to hold it all and function well. Slowly, over time my capacity increases, the depth of grief is still there, but I can hold it and function.
So here I am, representing the end of the DNA line. This feels like a lot of pressure. To do what exactly, I am not sure. However, I know that my ancestors, and my parents, sincerely struggled to give me the advantage and privilege I have experienced. Maybe they would be happy knowing that I appreciate how hard they worked and am enjoying the life they dreamed of?
Maybe.
Could it be that simple?
That feels hard to accept, hard to take on. It would entail a total commitment to the belief that I am enough. Me, just as I am, representing all of my ancestors, living my life with care and appreciation am enough.
I imagine, for a moment, that I am fully able to believe that and live from that perspective. As I contemplate what 'being enough' might feel like, a wave of relief comes over me. I see my dad smiling at me, as he used to when I finally understood something he was telling me.
'Yes,' he said. 'That's it; you are enough.'
We smile at each other, and his image disappears.
I am left teary yet grateful for his visit—a nudge in the direction of inhabiting this belief.
A few days later, I visit a thrift store, look into the jewelry case, and see many treasures. I imagine that my dad's St Christoper pendant, my St Christopher pendant, might one day end up here, and maybe that too will be enough.