Still Held

The Weeks That Return
There is a time each year when my father comes back to me.

Not in a way that is loud or sudden, but in a quiet, steady presence that begins to settle in long before the date itself arrives. It is not May 3 that holds me. It is the weeks leading up to it.

The remembering begins gently.

A thought while I am working at the counter.
A feeling that rises without being called.
A memory that does not ask permission before it enters the room.

And just like that, I am there again.

The Gift of Knowing
When my father’s oncologist told me he had weeks to live, time changed.

It narrowed.
It sharpened.
It became something sacred.

There was no more waiting. No more assuming there would be another chance, another visit, another conversation. I was given a window, and I knew it.

So I stayed.

I soaked him up in a way that only comes when you understand that time is no longer endless. Every word mattered. Every silence mattered. Every moment held a weight I could feel in my body.

There is a kind of presence that only comes when you know you are about to lose someone you love.

It is both devastating and beautiful.

I lived in that space with him.

And even now, I carry it with me.

The Day the Veil Thinned
On May 3, 2006, I held my father in my arms as he took his last breath.

I whispered to him that I loved him. I thanked him.

There are moments in life that cannot be explained, only experienced. That day was one of them.

There was something in that room that did not belong to this world alone. It was as if heaven and earth met for a brief moment and allowed us to stand in the space between them.

It was sacred.
It was holy.
It was love in its purest form.

In the end, I gave my father back to God.

But something of him never left me.

What He Built in Me
My father was a coach. A teacher. A man who knew how to look someone in the eye and call something forward in them they could not yet see in themselves.

He did that for so many people.

But he did it first for me.

He gave me a foundation that has never shifted, even when everything else in my life has.

He taught me what it meant to be steady.
To be disciplined.
To show up.
To believe.

Not in a loud or forceful way, but in a quiet certainty that became part of who I am.

I have drawn from that foundation more times than I can count.

Especially in the seasons that have asked more of me than I thought I had to give.

The First Lesson
My earliest memory of my father is in the water.

I was small. He was patient.

He never rushed me. Never left my side. Never asked me to do something he had not already shown me, step by step, with care and attention.

He watched me closely. Matched my movements. Stayed in rhythm with me until I found my own.

And then one day, he asked me to trust him.

He told me he was going to throw me into the pool.

To most children, that would have been terrifying.

But I was not afraid.

Because he had already taught me everything I needed to know.

Because he had already shown me, over and over again, that he would not let me fail.

So he threw me in.

I found the bottom. I pushed off. I came up for air. I made my way to the side.

And when I looked up, he was there.

Kneeling. Arms open. Smiling.

That moment has lived in me my entire life.

Not as a story. Not as a memory alone.

But as a truth.

I was loved.
I was capable.
I could trust what had been placed inside of me.

At the Counter
I feel him most in the quiet.

Not in the noise of the world, but here. In my kitchen. At the counter. Hands in the dough.

There is something about the rhythm of bread that brings him closer.

The repetition.
The discipline.
The patience.

The way you must trust the process, even when you cannot yet see the outcome.

He taught me that long before I ever made my first loaf.

Every time I fold the dough, I think about the way he taught me, gently and consistently.

Every time I wait for the fermentation to do its work, I am reminded that not everything can be rushed.

Every time I place a loaf into the oven, I feel the quiet confidence he placed in me all those years ago.

That I can do this.
That I have what I need.
That I was prepared.

A Love That Carries
There are lessons we are taught.

And then there are gifts we are given.

My father gave me both.

But the greatest gift he gave me was something I did not fully understand until much later.

He gave me a love that did not leave when he did.

A love that continues to carry me through every season of my life.

Through the good.
Through the difficult.
Through the moments that ask me to find strength I am not sure I have.

It is still there.

Steady.
Certain.
Unchanged.

Just as it was the day he stood at the edge of that pool, believing in me before I fully knew how to believe in myself.

Still Held
These weeks will always belong to him.

Not in a way that pulls me backward, but in a way that reminds me of what was built inside of me.

Of what remains.

Of what continues to guide me, quietly, faithfully, every single day.

And as I stand at my counter, hands in flour, shaping something from the simplest of ingredients, I realize that I am still being carried by the same love that held me then.

The same love that taught me to trust.

The same love that never left.

Warmly,
Kathy
Art of The Crumb