Three Weeks

I wrote the below on Friday, but technical difficulties prevented my posting until today. 

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As anyone who has lost someone very close to them knows, the immediate aftermath tends to be somewhat surreal. I don’t know for a fact that an unexpected death makes this even more the case, but I have to imagine it does, to some extent (not worse, mind you, but surreal). You’re surrounded by people, a lot of the time. And there’s the planning. You have something to focus on, and while that something is concrete, it seems rather unreal.

And then things slow down, and for everyone around you, life returns to normal. Only, there you are, in this new normal - a normal you want absolutely no part of, but which you cannot escape.

And you feel torn. Part of you just wants to get through to the point when the new normal will actually feel somewhat normal; the other part of you wants to hold onto the fresh grief you’re experiencing because letting it go indicates a distance from this person you love that you cannot even stand to imagine.

Your emotions are so raw. Maybe an iPhone ad in which a small child talks to his grandparents on FaceTime will cause you to dissolve into snotty, incoherent tears. Maybe a routine telemarketing call to your parents’ house by someone asking for your father will launch you into such a state of rage that you’ll want to reach through the phone and throttle an unknowing stranger. Maybe your brothers’ remembrances of your father will make you laugh until your abs are literally mildly sore the next day (which is probably compounded by your lack of working out at the moment…but that’s a story for another day).

I’m staying with my Mom right now. This house is so full of my Dad. There are little things he left around, because he was only going to be away a couple of weeks. There are tools. There is his shed. There are the birdfeeders (OH MY GOD, THE BIRDFEEDERS, what was he, starting a sanctuary in the backyard?!) that need to be filled, like, ALL THE DAMN TIME. There is his library of every James Patterson novel ever published. And that dude is PROLIFIC. There is the Bremner Wafers tin. These are just a few inconsequential examples.

I miss him so much that I literally ache. I have no idea how to exist in a world where he isn’t here. I have no idea who to call now when I need career advice (which I will again eventually). When I need a Santa-vention for a misbehaving child. When I just need to hear my Daddy’s voice.

When I was in my teens and my thyroid disease was not yet diagnosed, it behaved a lot like depression. I remember one day, I just COULD NOT stop crying. For no apparent reason. If you’ve ever been pregnant, you totally know what I’m talking about, since it's a similar phenomenon. I don’t remember where my Mom was, but my Dad was home with me and my two younger brothers. And he didn’t get exasperated or angry. He hugged me to him like I was a little girl instead of a 15 year old, and he said, “Sometimes, you just feel sad, huh?” And he held me that way until I felt better. I didn’t include this anecdote in my eulogy, because I’d never have gotten through it.

Dammit, I just miss him. Every second.