Spiralling

Today I'm spiralling.  I'm unable to produce this blog, as it is taking effort away from my grief.  The more I turn my back on my grief, the harder it will hit later.  I have a votive candle with my father's picture on it.  It is right under the television. Since I watch a lot of t.v. I am always glancing at it and that is when I realize that he is gone.  Each time I realize that he is gone, my breath hitches and that skipped breath makes its way to my heart.  Each time I realize that he is gone a new hitched breath attaches itself to the last.  Air is not heavy, but the meaning of that air is heavy.  It weighs my heart down until it cannot support the air anymore.  The only means of relief is to cry. No not true, a few tears are manageable. Just wipe away and smile.  What is coming, what happens when you ignore grief for a second, a minute, a day, is that it has to come out.  When it does it is ugly.  Full sob. Lie on your bed with a pillow in your face sob.  A sob that you wish was a scream but this pain is so, so private that I don't want to share it with anyone.

I never thought I would miss him THIS much.  I never thought it would feel like a piece of me is gone.  I never knew I had this piece, until it left.  I don't even know what it was shaped like, or what it was made of, it just disappeared when he died.  When he was dying, I didn't even feel it detach.  I think that is what hope does, it distracts you from your pain, until it can hide any more coins behind your ear.  Until the plain truth, that hope is an illusion, is so evident.  What's more annoying is that I am full of hope.  Wonderful right?  But where did hope lead us?  Last year, January 2013, my mother was hospitalized for her heart.  Fear paralysed my thoughts and all I could do was cry, cry at the thought of losing her, cry at the thought that my father would be alone, cry because I did not have a baby yet and she was going to die without meeting her grandchild.  Hope kicked in when she was given a defibrillator a new diet and lifestyle restrictions.  We grieved her old busy life and accepted a slower paced life.  New hope.  Oops was I standing on that carpet?  It just got ripped out from under me.  My mother in law in April of the same year was admitted for a rare disease.  A disease that only 20 people in Canada have!!! Ya, so she went through an onslaught of doctors poking and prodding her.  Her kidneys almost failed so dialysis for three months was her reality. Etc. Etc. Don't feel like going into all the details but just so you know, this year, she had cancer and was following Chemo! Bam! That felt like a stick in my bicycle spokes just as I was relishing the fresh air on my cheeks.  But right before the Cancer diagnosis, my father goes in the hospital for a brain toumor.  A fucking brain toumor! Really?  I'm running through the steps but you have to realize every step was agonizing.  Every phone call made us sick to our stomaches.  I didn't want to answer the phone for fear of more bad news. And it came.  He had to be operated.  We had to visit this man that no longer looked like himself.  We had to be strong, but I cannot, will not have a poker face so I cried.  The operation was a success, he went home.  Mom had to take care of him, he was weak, she was weak, he went back to the hospital.  The cancer spread, there was nothing to be done.  The other shoe dropped, he would die.  He died.  Everyone keeps saying that at least he got to see his grand baby.  I try to believe this is wonderful, for him.  I try to think that this is wonderful for mom.  I cannot see how wonderful this is for me or for her.  She will never meet him.  He won't pick her up after school as a surprise.  She will never fall asleep in his arms.

I can't continue.........

The weight of grief

Some days, like yesterday, grief is like a balloon filled with helium that is tied around your wrist.  You know it is there, you have to pull down the string so that you can enter a room, make sure it doesn't get caught when the door closes and it'll probably bump you in the head when you are driving in your car with the windows down or even get between you and the windshield so you have a hard time seeing.  But like a helium balloon, symbol of birthdays or parties, it can bring you joy.  A sad smile will spread on your lips and might even put a little sparkle in your eyes.  This joy is when you remember times spent with your loved one.  Looking through pictures can help this along too.  On these days you can think of what the person might say to you, for example, I was passing the weed eater and I was imagining what my father would say to me if he noticed I was leaning the machine on my hip.  He would have told me if I couldn't do the whole yard without leaning it on my hip, then to separate the yard over a few days. So I removed it from my hip, squared my shoulders and finished the back yard and front yard.  Thanks Dad.  I even read the instruction manual to find out how to get more whip out.  But then days like today, where I overslept, did not find the right breakfast to keep me going, days like today are brutal.  I have no focus and I'm always hungry.  It will not be a superhero productive day like yesterday.  Today the grief feels like a rock the size of a basketball in the pit of my stomach.  This rock has a string tied around it and on the other end is my collarbone.  This string is too short so it forces me to hunch over.  I try to imagine it like an elastic.  I know today I will not be able to remove the rock so the elastic allows me to hold my head up above the grief and see that the sun is shining and my daughter is smiling at me.  But I know, and I am going to agonize all day, that the elastic is going to snap and I will have my face buried in my pillow trying to cry the boulder out of my mouth so I can feel better tomorrow.

Apres

They said leading up to his death and after his death that my dad will watch over me.  A simple sentiment meant to comfort me, when in reality it really pissed me off. Another one is "stay strong for your daughter", that one really riles me up.  How can you ask me to be strong when I am planning my father's cremation and funeral arrangements like I plan my birthday parties!  How can you ask me to stay strong when there is nothing I can do and too much to do at the same time.  How can you ask me to be strong when at the same time as I am saying goodbye to the photographer that took amazing photos of my daughter, mementos of her smiling baby face, a UPS truck parks in front of my house to deliver my father's urn! Stay strong.  Is it because you feel that I am not up to it? My daughter is fed, happy, clean....I think I am allowed to cry over her if I feel I need to.  She is my greatest comfort.  She is the best listener.

I suppose the sentiment of being watched over is to remind us that there is no need to feel alone, that we can still talk to that person and somehow this comforts us.  I think it is cruel.  It has been 15 days since his death and we have had a funeral and a baptism since.  I would like to think that he has been there watching us, or sitting next to us.  I like to think that he got to witness, at the restaurant where we had his memorial, the impact he had on others while he was alive, because I don't think he loved himself enough to realize the impact he had on others.  I didn't even realize the impact he had since it never occurred to me to think about it.  You think about impact when you think about the people who volunteer, who get crests, titles or even parties in their honour for the great work done.  I like to think that he would tell us not to fuss, but his tender heart would be filled with love and pride at the hard work his kids put into remembering him and his wife for taking apart photo albums filled with decades worth of photos just to find those photos that summed up his life.  I like to think that he  was watching his grand baby get welcomed into the house of God through baptism.  That maybe he was sitting with the Big Man and getting compliments from Him about how beautiful and perfect she is.  I like to think that he is near me when I weep, I miss his arms so.  He would tell me to "reviens-en" get over it, move on.

I think it's cruel.  I think it would be unfair to be hovering around those you love for.....sounds like as long as you need them.  It's cruel to me to be able to talk to my father and not hear an answer, same for him, he can hear the question but not be able to give me his advice.  How cruel is it that he can watch his widow, crying herself to sleep and he cannot hold her.  He might place his hand on her shoulder to let her know he is there but she'd probably pull up the blanked over her shoulder where he left a cold spot.  Would he be pained to watch that he cannot throw his baby granddaughter into the air and hear her giggle.  Such a beautiful creature made by his daughter and he cannot enjoy her.

I would rather that he move on. Move on away from the mundanity of life, onto the other lie we tell ourselves of better places.  Do we create our own heaven?  I cannot imagine my father living on a cloud with the sound of angels signing in the distance.  I see him watching the NASCAR races from the best seats, having access to the pits, the winners circle and the garages.   I see him mowing endless fields of grass and never getting tired, unless he wanted to feel a good days work.  i see him passing the snow blower on a summer day just because he felt like it.  But these scenarios pull up more questions like if he can pick and choose what his heaven looks like on any given day, how does it affect everyone else's heavens?  Will he be bumping into my grandpa, great aunts that we have lost or are there so many people that it would be impossible to find them.  Essentially I guess my heaven would be a holodeck or virtual reality.  Choosing which space I want to inhabit for the moment.