June Gloom

Ep 6: Digital Pioneer Jory Des Jardins Concert Review: The BoDeans

June Gloom

There’s a Bay Area weather phenomenon that confounds tourists called “June Gloom.” Just as the rest of the country is slathering up with sunscreen and shaking the dust off the beach bags, we in the Bay Area layer up in fleece to combat the grey cold of morning, and talk to each other about whether the cloud cover will burn off before dinner. Some days we don’t see the sun until 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and then it’s just a couple hours in short sleeves before the fleece goes back on.

I love it. I’m built for cold, not heat, and I have an extensive wardrobe of hooded sweatshirts. The only summer days that truly offend me are the ones that dawn clear and sunny. You know, summery.

But this year’s June Gloom seems especially gloomy, because it’s pretty much how I feel inside, too. A year ago this week, my heretofore healthy 82 year old dad fainted while he was out golfing. An MRI a couple days later revealed the major brain tumor that was the metastasized melanoma that would take him from us before the end of July.

Every day so far in June 2017, I look back at my photos taken in June 2016 and remember the surreal timeline that unfolded all month. Oh, this is the day I flew to Rochester and went straight to the hospital last year. This is the day we had a family Father’s Day brunch and Dad ate like his regular self. This is the last day he ever went up to camp. I imagine this timeline of sadness will dog me like a shadow, a half step behind, all summer.

My view last June

If it does, it joins another shadow, the reminder that my father-in-law passed away in June, almost ten years ago. We remember BT on that day every year, in part because he had the style to die on 06/07/08, yet another thing about him that was elegant and memorable.

Then add in Father’s Day 2017, the first one on which neither my husband and I will have anyone to whom to send a card.

Then throw in my dad’s birthday, June 23. He and I had the same challenge – my birthday and Mother’s Day are only a week apart, and his birthday and Father’s Day are similarly linked. We used to laugh about how all our appreciation was crammed into on small week on the calendar, and how nice it might have been to space it out.

Compared to the other months, Dad-wise, June kinda sucks.

Almost a year after losing Dad, I can look back and recognize some of the peaks and valleys that marked my grief. Aside from a few wonderful things we did with the girls last summer, like picking one up from her ballet summer program and dropping the other off at college, I have zero recollection of anything from the day Dad fell, until basically Thanksgiving. Evidently I functioned, but nothing stuck.

January was the first time that I felt like I was almost, kind of, adjusted to the new normal, which includes a different level of concern and care for my mom, coordinated between my siblings and me. (It takes three of us to equal one of my dad on that score.) And by March when I started planning and producing the podcast, putting my energy into a new creative channel, I had whole swaths of time when I didn’t even think of my dad at all. Hours, even.

Of course, throughout this whole process, there have been random and unexpected moments of sheer sadness culminating in public and/or private weeping. The latest was last Saturday in a grocery store parking lot, when I decided to text my brother and sister a quick thanks for all they are doing for our mom, and ended up with my head down on the steering wheel sobbing while the nice man in the car parked directly across from mine looked on in concern. I had to give him the ol’ “It’s ok, dude, I’m fine” hand wave before he would back his car out. It made me laugh a little that he looked so alarmed.

And just like with the weather, that’s how my internal gloom lifts. Something pokes through the fabric of my sadness, some kindness or laughter or a moment of gratitude – for instance, for the kindness of strangers. And just like when the sun pokes through the Bay Area clouds, the June day isn’t a loss anymore. It can even feel kind of cozy.

As long as you keep your fleece and your tissues nearby.

Went to the best NorCal June Gloom show last night – Rogue and Jay at the UCBerkeley Botantical Gardens’ Redwood Grove, as part of its Summer Concert Series. We wore parkas. Rogue is Zach Rogue, of Rogue Wave, who together with Courtney Jaye’s crystalline voice created some of the most beautiful harmonies I’ve ever heard…check ‘em. I posted some video from the performance over on the MM Facebook page too.