7 x 7 Days of Mourning

This day is typically my week’s reward, no doubt directly influenced by my American TGIF culture. The ambassador of the weekend, its wake up times are usually flexible and bedtimes are virtually nonexistent. It’s a day for working from home and forgoing nice pants. Friday is Chai Day.

Friday is now also the day that Dad died. It’s the day that ends another week without him, and marks the beginning of the next. It’s also the last song that my father shared on his social media: a cover of The Cure’s “Friday, I’m In Love” by Phoebe Bridgers.

I find myself marking these Fridays — mentally, emotionally, and physically — repeated milestones of grief. The reaction often comes before the awareness of the day of the week. I feel worn down, out of sorts, even unwell. At some point, my brain makes the connection.

Ah right, it’s Friday. Of course it is.

According to thisjapaneselife.org, the tradition in Japan is for the mourning family to conduct a series of memorial ceremonies on every seventh day after the death until the 49th day.

With the body burned, the spirit starts to leave. The journey takes 49 days, with seven trials every seven days, and small services are held in this world once a week.
Over time, the spirit of the dead is moving farther away from the realm of the living, and the living are further away from the death. On the 49th day, the spirit arrives at its destination and a celebration is held for the mourners.
With the dead at its destination, the attention turns to the living.

49 days. 7 weeks. Today.

There is something to this concept of journeying away from the death and turning my attention to the living that resonates.

Today feels like the other Fridays in many respects. I feel slightly drained and my body is finding new ways of expressing its dislike of my latest medical hiccup. Yet there is a shift in the breeze, all the same. After seven weeks of this, it’s transitioning from an unexpected visitor to something familiar, something known. Not a friend exactly, but a guest that has every right to stop in and accompany me.

So I will keep letting it in, but I don’t have to go out of my way to cater to it — it knows where to find the tea and the hot water, the bookshelf and the TV remote. It can come sit with me, if it wishes, or it can linger in the other room, just beyond my view. It’s going to be there no matter what, bringing the warm memories and the painful ones in equal measure.

It’s not quite TGIF, but it’s a step that I’m willing to take. That’s enough for now.

I don’t care if Monday’s blue
Tuesday’s grey and Wednesday too
Thursday, I don’t care about you
It’s Friday, I’m in love
Monday you can fall apart
Tuesday, Wednesday, break my heart
Thursday doesn’t even start
It’s Friday, I’m in love

The Cure, “Friday I’m In Love“