I Make It Every Year And I Dread It

It starts in October.

Not the cooking. The dread. There is a week in the year when everybody comes and you make his dish, and somewhere around the middle of October a small weight arrives in your chest and does not leave until it is over.

Nobody knows. They all love that you do it. Somebody says something every year about how good it is that the tradition continues, and you agree with them, and you mean it and you also do not.

Because you never chose this. The first year after he died you made it because somebody had to, and everybody was grateful in a way that made it permanent, and now it is eleven years in and it is yours, and there was never a moment where anybody asked whether you wanted it.

And you cannot say any of that, because the only way out you can see is to announce that you no longer want to honor your father, and that is not what this is.

So let me say the first thing plainly, before anything about a kitchen.

This is about him and the cooking is second.

Nothing here is going to tell you to keep it going for the family's sake, and nothing here is going to tell you what he would have wanted. And if you read this to the end and decide not to make it this year, that is a complete and good ending and this article will say so.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh

There is a passage in Ecclesiastes that lists opposites, and the thing to notice is that it does not choose between them.

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance. (Ecclesiastes 3:4, King James Version)

A time to weep, and a time to laugh.

Both are listed. Neither is corrected. Nobody in that chapter is told to get to the laughing part, and nobody is told that the weeping should have finished by now.

And the word time is doing the work. It means there are seasons for these, which means a thing that was right one year is not automatically right the eleventh.

You are inside a list that allows for seasons rather than a rule that runs forever, and something that was right in the first year has never once been binding in the eleventh. Ecclesiastes 3:4 sets weeping and laughing side by side without correcting either, and the Holy Spirit is the one present with a man who felt a weight arrive in October.

And notice the passage does not explain the seasons.

It does not say why there is a time to weep. It does not tell anybody how to tell which season they are in, and it offers no instruction about how to behave in either.

It simply grants that both exist, which is a great deal more permission than most people have ever been given about grief.

You have permission for a season to change rather than a duty that was set once, and eleven years of doing a thing has never once made it the eleventh year's answer. The Spirit of God is the one with somebody carrying a weight nobody in that family knows about, and Ecclesiastes 3:4 grants both seasons and explains neither.

Duty and love are not the same object

Here is the second part, and it is one separation.

You love your father. That has never been in question and it is not what October is about.

What arrives in October is a duty, and a duty is a different object. It has a deadline, it has an audience, and it has a performance in it, and none of those three has anything to do with a man who has been dead eleven years.

And here is the difficulty: from the outside, love and duty look identical. Everybody at that table sees a son honoring his father. Nobody can see the weight, which means nobody has ever had the chance to take it off you, and the invisibility is doing most of the damage.

You were carrying a duty rather than failing at love, and a weight nobody can see has never once been a weight you were supposed to carry alone. Ecclesiastes 3:4 refuses to rank mourning against dancing, and the Holy Spirit is the one with a man who agrees every year when somebody praises the tradition.

And here is the part that matters most, and it is permission. You do not have to make it. Not this year, and not ever again, and stopping would not be a statement about your father. Some people find that when the duty is lifted the dish becomes possible again, sometimes within a year or two, because it turns out the dread was never about him. And some people never make it again and love him exactly as much, and that ending is not a lesser one.

You have permission to stop that is not a statement about him, and putting a dish down has never once been the same thing as putting a person down. The Spirit of God is the one at that table with a man who is free either way, and Ecclesiastes 3:4 allows a season to end without requiring a reason.

What this year is, with that week

So here is the assignment, and most of it is not cooking. Say out loud what that week costs you, and make it this year or decide not to.

Out loud is the part that matters, and it can be to one person or to nobody at all in an empty kitchen. Say the actual sentence: this has been hard for eleven years and I have never said so. That sentence has been inside you since about the third year, and sentences that stay inside get heavier, and this one has been getting heavier every October since.

It will be difficult. That is the point rather than an accident.

You are saying a sentence that has been inside for eight years, and something said out loud once has never once stayed as heavy as something kept in. Ecclesiastes 3:4 puts the weeping in the list without asking for a reason, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that kitchen with a man finally saying it.

Then the second half, which is genuinely open. Make it this year, or decide not to. If you make it, make it having said the sentence first, which turns out to be a different act from making it in silence. And if you decide not to, tell one person in the family before the week rather than on the day, and do not give a reason, because you do not owe one and the reason will turn it into a negotiation.

You are deciding rather than continuing, and a year you chose has never once been the same year as one that arrived. The Spirit of God is the one at that table whichever way it goes, and Ecclesiastes 3:4 grants both seasons and explains neither.