A day or two after my dad’s funeral, the family gathered at a church we’d never been to, one my dad found online because of their columbarium. It was where he decided he wanted his ashes to be held. There was a large part of me that felt sick knowing he’d planned that for himself, that he spent moments alone at his computer deciding things for after he was gone – his biggest concern was always making things easier for me and Mom.
Often, I find myself wishing that, somehow, he could have been spared the knowledge of what his future held. Sometimes I can’t stop thinking about how it must have felt, knowing that there was a tumor growing in his brain that was going to kill him. That thought is the kind of sickness that still lingers, even now, long after him and the cancer have both died, the sickness of knowing my father, who lived with a joy like no one I’ve ever known, spent his last months staring death in the face. But I know that if anyone could handle the unbearable weight of that kind of knowledge, it was him. He always carried his cancer with grace, courage, and unwavering faith – more than I can comprehend, really.
The ceremony was short, and I remember very little of it. I felt detached, like I was watching someone else experience it, until out of nowhere, I was back in my body having a panic attack. I felt the sudden urge to walk away, to get as far from that place as I could, but I stayed rooted in place, eyes fixed on the silver canister holding my dad’s cremated remains. I remember thinking there was no way they could have stuffed all of him in such a little container, marveling at that surprisingly small metal canister and trying to wrap my head around the fact that my dad was inside of it, but I never could seem to believe it.
I’m not entirely sure what triggered the panic attack: missing my dad, seeing that container and thinking that was all that was left of him, or the suffocating grief that the ceremony held, making every breath feel like I was sucking in something too heavy for my lungs to hold. All I knew was that I hated being there, and I wanted to leave. That may be part of why I haven’t been back since. Not one time since that day eight years ago. But far more than that silly reason, I think I’ve never cared to go back because I know my dad isn’t there.
There are ashes in a silver canister nestled into a beautiful wall etched with his name, but that’s not him. I remember at his funeral, resting a hand over the polished casket that held his body – a temporary resting place until his cremation – and thinking that if I lifted the lid and peeked, I’d find a face so familiar it might as well have been my own, but then in an instant, I knew that wasn’t fully true, not anymore.
If you knew my father, you’d know that it was rare to see him without a mischievous glimmer in his eyes, without that smile of unbridled joy creeping onto his face as he pieced together the perfect thing to say to make you laugh. So, of course, the face in that wooden box wouldn’t be my dad’s. Close enough, sure, but not in the way that mattered.
It’s the same reason why I didn’t look at him after he died. I held his hand, committed the feeling to memory; when he took his last breath, I closed my eyes and took in the warmth of his hand in mine for the last time. I rubbed my fingers over his calloused knuckles, imagined the countless times those hands had swung me through the grocery store parking lot, all the times I’d wrapped his arm around me and leaned into his side as we sat on the couch, feeling safe from the world in my dad’s arms, and that was enough. I said, “I love you,” and left the room without looking back. I didn’t want my last memory of him to be of a face I hardly recognized, so instead, I let it be of the hand I’d held for 17 years.
My father wasn’t in that casket. He isn’t in the cemetery now. The skin he used to wear might be, but his spirit, his soul, that is far away from there. You would never find my dad in a place where sadness lingered.
No, my dad is in every obnoxious laugh I let out in the moments when I probably shouldn’t. He’s in the curse words my little cousins let slip, and in every new adventure I go on with my family. His voice carries through every classic rock song, and his love and joy follow me like a light breeze, carrying me forward each day with almost as much strength as he used to swing me through those grocery store parking lots with.
But he’s not in that silver canister. I know better now. I know that if I pulled it out of that beautiful stone wall and opened the lid, I’d just find ashes that would blow away with the wind. They might be pieces of him, sure, but I prefer to focus on the pieces of him that are still alive.
On one of the bad nights before he died, one of the nights when none of us could pretend we didn’t feel Death occupying the empty chair in the room as it bided its time, Dad told me that after he died, he hoped I’d still sing. That’s stuck with me for all these years. You see, I’m not a singer. I’m a writer, an artist, a pianist, but not a singer. Still, I love music and I always have, and Dad and I had countless concerts together, putting on energetic performances of whatever KISS song we’d landed on that night without missing a beat. But I wonder a lot about why he wanted me to sing, specifically.
I think it’s because he knew I’d still write. I’d still draw and play piano, because that was in my blood. But singing… I suppose he must have imagined a future where I still did the things I was supposed to, but the grief kept me from finding the joy to do the silly things like performing “Detroit Rock City” at the top of my lungs, and that scared him more than dying.
And so I promised him that night that I would still sing. For a while, it wasn’t an easy promise to keep. There were so many days after losing him that I couldn’t even find the will to listen to music, content to simply wallow. But I made a promise, and I intended to keep it, so I forced myself to make music when I didn’t feel like it until slowly, I wasn’t doing it out of obligation – I was doing it for fun.
So, of course, that’s how I know Dad’s not really gone. He’s not in that canister, not in the wall of the columbarium. I know he’s still alive, because I still sing.
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Gabby Parker lives and writes by the beach in South Carolina. She teaches English at Coastal Carolina University, where she received her M.A. in Writing. Her work has been previously published in Sky Island Journal and Bright Flash Literary Review. When not engaging in some form of art, Gabby can be found spending time with family or asking to pet a stranger’s dog.
© 2026, Gabby Parker
Halfway Down the Stairs 