End of grief?

Lately I feel like I have forgotten that my father has died.  It is going on seven months now and I feel fine....ish.  Some fleeting moments I feel like I should be more sad, like I shouldn't be able to function.  I feel as though I am being a bad daughter for not hurting more.  Tears spring up and feel like the end of the world but they are gone and dried up within minutes.  No more hugging myself, crying into my pillow for hours.  People tell me it is because I am so busy with my baby and being pregnant that I have no time for grief.  If that is the case then I am storing it up somewhere and I am not looking forward to when the dam breaks.  It will be ugly.  I think it is because I had the time to tell my father everything.  There wasn't much to say since I don't really keep to myself but I had the time to muster up my courage and tell him I was going to miss him. (here come the tears)  It was only months that lead up to his death but he was able to go through the emotions of anger, resentment, fear, and acceptance.  Once he accepted his fate he started to assure that my mother was going to be ok and divvying up his personal belongings.  I think because there was time for this, I am able to accept it.  I'm not a person who could or would want to change the past.  I know I cannot, so I don't dwell.  The future is hard to imagine sometimes without my heart aching, knowing that he will not be there, but he walked me down the asile and he saw my first child.  He will not see me raise my child, but I feel like he doesn't need to because he raised me right and would have already known what kind of parent I would be.

 He was in my dream last night, helping mom pack up the apartment to move in with us. Jayne was in her crib crying for attention (not waa-waa, but hey look at me cry) and I told my father to go and get her but my mom distracted him with some object.  I believe my waking mind refuses to let my father go about his 'normal' life, should he have been alive, because I know that it is not possible.  I am trying to let my dreams be dreams and to see my father pick up Jayne at 10 months old would be well a dream.

I also have this beautiful baby that smiles all day.  She mimics tone and sounds, she's brave and well reckless.

Oh, and my mom is moving in.

Holding Back

Every day, every hour, maybe even every minute, I hold back.  I hold back the pain, the tears the devastation.  Every day, every hour, maybe even every minute I think of something else.  The baby is a constant distraction, my husband, the guilt of a mother not having done this and not having done that.  Every day, every hour and maybe even every minute there is something else to do, breakfast lunch and supper for the baby, for myself, supper for the husband, laundry, cleaning oh a walk....did I go outside today?  Every day, every hour and every minute I ignore my grief.  I wall it up with some grout and brick.  Every day I make a new wall.  The space gets smaller and smaller.  I'm so tired from building walls.  It gets harder to breathe in this small space.  It gets harder to hide from my thoughts pouring out of my broken heart.  Oh GOD! My daddy, my dear daddy is gone.  Tears escape from my eyes.  I wipe them up and look somewhere else for a distraction, but the walls are so close there is no where to look.  I leave the inside of my head and search for a distraction admits reality.  Ah my baby girl, what a smile, Grandpa would have loved to make you smile. Damn!   Quick my husband is coming in, I don't want him to see me cry.  There is nothing he can do about it anyway.  It's not like he can take away the pain of losing my father.  Damn! Why did I have to think it!  I'm a mess and I don't feel like it will get better.  I will just be the master of holding it back.  What scares me is that I don't know when I will lose it.  I can feel when I start to get tired of building my walls.  A day or two after I realize that, thats when I lose it.  The only thing that can save me is an ugly cry.  Fists balled up, face in my pillow gripping the sides and a silent wail escaping my open mouth.  Then the walls crumble, I clean up and prepare my grout and brick for when I will be building my walls again.  My aunt told me that it is not something a person ever gets over.  She lost her daddy 20 years ago.  She was crying on the phone with me as she was trying to comfort me.  I don't want to deal with this for the next 20 years.  The only way I could stop dealing with this would be to erase the memory of his death, but then I'd be looking for him.  Would this be frustrating or a false hope?  Now it is just to definite, no wiggle room.  He's dead, gone, I will not be seeing him again.  Or if I erase the memory of him altogether......I never want to do that but  for he sake of arguing, I would have to erase all those  lives that interconnected with his, including my husband's and my daughter's.  No, I have to deal with this pain.  This pain is the deepest, most devastating pain I have ever known.  How is it possible to feel so empty with longing yet so full of love for the one you've lost.  I must have been so very loved by him if it hurts this much.  I must have loved him so much more than I ever thought possible, for it to hurt this much.  I never want to feel this pain again.  That is a selfish sentiment. Because if I never feel this pain again, then my loved ones would have lost me first, and I would never wish this pain on them.  Moments like this is when I realize just how strong I really am.  For me to decide to shoulder the pain of losing others instead of them losing me, helps me understand that I CAN survive the death of my father.  He would want me to stop crying for him, thinking that he doesn't deserve all these tears.  But he does deserve every last tear that will fall from my eyes.  I just want him to hug me and to tell me to get over it.  I just want my daddy.

Elvis Presley

Yesterday in my fit of tears I bought an Elvis Presley album on iTunes.   It feels so good to hear his voice, feel his words and cry at the memories.  Saying my dad loved Elvis is an understatement.  He knew all his songs, had a framed poster on the wall and cried when he got the news that Elvis had left this earth.  Elvis' voice reminds me of when my dad would sing his songs.  He would mimic the voice  so well that my untrained ear did not hear the difference, but then again I can sing like Whitney Huston......when he would sing, he would mostly have mom in his arms and would sing to her soul.  He looked straight into her eyes, held her close and just spent that moment with her.  I made it through a few songs.  I listened to the Wonder of You, the song he chose to dance with me on my wedding day.  I had never listened to the words..... 

"When no-one else can understand me

When everything I do is wrong

You give me hope and consolation

You give me strength to carry on

And you're always there to lend a hand

In everything I do

That's the wonder

The wonder of you

And when you smile the world is brighter

You touch my hand and I'm a king

Your kiss to me is worth a fortune

Your love for me is everything

I'll guess I'll never know the reason why

You love me as you do

That's the wonder

The wonder of you"

Now that I am a parent, I can understand what these words mean.  They mean the same for my husband, but towards a child it is natural.  This unconditional love, the immediate falling over heals for your child is so beautiful.  I expected to feel overjoyed when I saw her for the first time, but honestly, I was so tired I couldn't even process what I was feeling.  It was a buzz in my brain, but I was in complete awe that we made her and I carried her and she's here! But what I did notice was despite the fatigue, my husband and I did everything we could to make her comfortable.  She hardly cried at the hospital.  We took care of her.  That is unconditional love.  Getting up after a few hours sleep, feeding her through cracked bleeding nipples, changing gross, stinky diapers that not always contain the grossness, and changing the clothes that were attained by the grossness.  Unconditional love is ferocious, terrifying, and amazing.  But unconditional love hurts when the source is gone.  I know I love my father.  I know I would protect him should the time arise.  I never understood what unconditional love was.  I love my husband.  But I fell in love with him.  I learned to love him unconditionally.  But your parents, you just loved them at first sight.  My daughter loves me and I feel it when she looks to my soul when she's having her bottle and I am the only one in the universe. I feel it when she smiles at a silly face I made.  I feel it when she laughs at her father's faces.  I feel it when I miss my daddy.  I have never wanted to cry in his arms as much as I do now.  

Sometimes I wish I had something to blame it on like bad nutrition or smoking.  That way I can say "if only he quit smoking, or he listened to his doctor".  I don't even have the luxury of putting the blame elsewhere, because there is no blame to be thrown.  He had a brain tumour.  Simple.  It spread. Simple.  We have to give thanks for the little blessings (but don't say this to me because it will piss me off).  I had the chance to say goodbye, several times.  I had the chance to say I love you, for all the times I didn't.  I don't regret anything except for the times I said I would do something with him and never planned it.  But it is in the past, and I will not hold on to that.  I will be grateful for the time we did have, and we did have a great time.  I will be  happy that I got to cry in his arms.  I will be happy that I was there when he passed away.  I needed to be there when he passed away.  I don't know if I needed the proof, but I wish I could erase the last picture I have of him.  The picture of the shell that held his soul for 59 short years. I'm happy I was there for my mom.  But I am so very very sad.